My Big Sister the Spider
by Nocturne no Kitsune
Summary: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her Father has died and the company has Collapsed due to bad management, Leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets where she has grown in unexpected ways, in order to survive. Can anything Save Sari?
1. Chapter 1

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, BlackArachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and his company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets where she has grown in unexpected ways, in order to survive. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N: Welcome to Chapter One Remix. This is just me and My beta fixing up past Mistakes, and making it a all around more enjoyable read for you, the readers. Also, give a hand of thanks to my new beta who has been a great help so far, ********Zim'sMostLoyalServant****!**** Now then, on with the fic and leave lots of reviews!**

**Chapter One: I can't cry anymore**

**Abandoned Factory – Night Time**

She huddled closer to the flame, a small figure wrapped in discarded clothing and sheltered in the abandoned factory on the far side of town, surrounded by dusty relics of her past life. Various machines and mechanisms crowded the room, adding an atmosphere tinged with the sense of loneliness.

To one side was the remains of her once hated tutor-bot, built by her father who for some reason did not think to just send her to some public or even a private school. Then there was the robotic pet she had owned; laying on a set of improvised shelves lifelessly, its battery having died a long time ago. She doubted it would even work if it did have a new battery, the metal and plastic that made up the pet having been all but stripped away and lost. She slowly stood up, trying to ignore the pain, both from her body and her stomach and walked over to these two fragments of her past, and remembered the days when they were hated and annoying but still functional. She started to cry as the memories came back, but all that came were dry eyes and choking sobs. No matter how much she wanted to, she could not cry anymore, no tears came and there was no release that normally came with tears.

Standing up again she wobbled her way back to her makeshift fire, and curled up on the floor, trying to get some sleep while she could. She needed to be up earlier tomorrow to try and steal some more food, before she starved. But she could not; as hard as she tried to sleep she stayed wide-awake and alert, and nothing she did was changing that. Getting back up, she made her way into the deeper parts of the abandoned factory, to her special place where she could find a hint of comfort and solace. Coming to the large cast iron door of her special place, she pulled as hard as she could, her eight-year old frame straining to try and move the large metal door; and with a horrible shriek from rusty metal the door gave, slamming open suddenly and knocking her to the cold cement floor.

Getting back up and dusting herself off, she walked in, to the room that held the stored contents of her father's lab. She sat in the over sized chair, where her father used to sit while he worked, and tried to remember the good times with him, before this had happened. But there were so few, so little memories of the good times with her father that she broke down again into a fit of dry sobs in her seat. The sobbing soon changed however, into an angry shouting.

"Why? Why did this have to happen! Why did he... why did he have to die?! Its not fair!"

She picked up the keyboard and threw it across the room, where it collided with the only person that would listen to her. After calming down, she turned around and retrieved the keyboard, and looked up at what some would pitifully call her friend. Staring back down at her was a fearsome visage of metal and crystal red optics, one of the many remains of her fathers work. Or at least that was what most thought. With the keyboard in hand like a precious treasure she sat at the base of the disembodied robot's head in silence, for no other reason then to find some peace under the watchful eye of her guardian. After a moment she quietly stood back up and placed the keyboard back in its niche on her father's desk and left, to once again try and sleep.

A few hours of restless sleep later, and she was ready to leave on her hunt for some food for the day. She had learned early on that she could not store food for a long time in the factory, and with nothing else to do she had taken to stealing it on an almost daily basis. Cramming the hacking kit and her stun gun into her tattered pockets, she took off from the factory in a run, the rising sun in the distance, and headed for a small, automated grocery store not far from her home.

She knew it was better to try and break in right before the robotic stores opened; during the night, the computers that ran them diverted processing power from the security systems to the systems needed to get the store running each day, and that left them vulnerable to her. She had learned to hack into the stores out of necessity, the need for food and the lack of money driving her to learn how to use the tools from her father's lab to break in.

She came to the store, going around the back where she could hear the machines as they started up for the day, and approached the back door. Bringing out her hacking kit she tapped into the stores programming, and soon enough had tricked it into opening the back door and disabling the remaining security systems.

Running inside, she grabbed a few of the recycled plastic bags kept in stock and started grabbing what she could from the storage units, cramming everything she could into the bags to last her the next day or two. She quietly talked to herself from behind her muffler, urging herself to move faster before she was noticed.

"_Come on, faster, faster! Gotta get done, gotta get going!_"

Finishing up and now with a full set of bags in each hand, she looked around to make sure there was nothing left that she wanted to grab, or that there was anything left to tell the disconcerting eye that she had been here. Turning around to the doorway, she was shocked however, to come face to face with the angry face and voice of a man dressed in a delivery outfit, obviously here to restock the store.

"What do you thing you're doing here?! Come here you brat!"

The man lunged at her, and she barely dodged to the side of the room. Taking out her stun gun on instinct and dropping the bags she shot the man in the back with a bolt of concentrated non-lethal energy and watched him drop to the floor like a spastic puppet without strings, as the man jerked and twisted as the blast played havoc with his nervous system. Panicking, Sari grabbed the dropped bags and ran out into the city and past the truck that the man had most likely come in. She ran without paying attention to where she was going, just wanting to get out of the area as the realization that she had attacked and hurt a man sunk in. Ever since her father had died she had lived on the streets, stealing and working to stay alive, as a person that did not exist as she had been told… but never doing something like this.

Before long her scared legs had carried her far from her home, and to a beach by the lake where she took a moment, and calmed herself. She sat down on an oddly shaped dune in the middle of the beach and started to think about what she would do now, if that man took the time to report her theft and attack on his person. While she sat she felt the dune beneath her shift, and before she knew it she had been thrown from the small sandy bump as the sand slid off of it and - to her surprise again - revealed a large marked box. Carefully setting the bags down she started to examine the box, her eight-year old mind getting the better of her and making her forget the lessons about the snoopy cat and how it had ended. The box was strangely cube-like while not being cube-like, and Sari cursed not having paid attention to geometry class for once so she would know what to call it. The box was lightly colored, a light tan in appearance almost with deeper colored lines running across the surface.

On each side there was a handle, and in the middle there appeared to be some sort of latch or some other such thing. Wondering what was inside she tried to open it, only to fail monumentally and end up with sore fingers. Sari decided to try and take it back with her, but wondered how she was ever going to get it back to the factory. The box was bigger then she was, and looked heavy enough to crush her if she tried to lift it by herself. Looking around she found she was in luck, for there was an old flat bed trolley nearby.

After a time wrestling with the trolley and some scavenged rope from the docks nearby, she had managed to get the box on the trolley and ready to move. She spent the next span of time moving through the city, avoiding people and bots, not wanting to gather attention towards her or her cargo lest someone try to take it away, and by the time she had gotten back to the factory it was dark. She left the bags of food and the cube outside, and carefully looked around the factory, not wanting to be caught unaware by someone. After she was satisfied that there was no one but her and the robots, she dragged everything inside and to the room with her father's equipment.

She set the food by the fireplace on her way by, and continued onwards to the lab room. Once again she struggled with the door, and after getting it open again she dragged the cube and trolley inside. Leaving it in the middle of the room, Sari started searching for something she could use to open the cube in one of the many crates that littered the room, and inadvertently came across her old key card. She was about to throw it away, when she looked at the card and then the cube. The card's job was to open stuff right? Then maybe it would open up the cube. Holding the card in hand she reached out towards the box…

**A/N2: And there's the end of Chapter 1, and I hope you enjoyed it. Plz R&R!**


	2. Chapter 2

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, BlackArachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and his company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

_**A/N: Thanks to those that had taken the time to review. I would also like to put the word out that I am looking for a Beta to help keep this fic in order, and to help cover for my few bad points. If you know of a Beta that would be willing or are one, please drop me a line. Also, as to the update rate for this fic: It will be very sporadic, from a few days to a few weeks in between updates. I will update when I update and when the Plot bunny comes after me with the chainsaw again, and people who bug for a post shall be the ones to blame when it don't come out, since it discourages me and drains my creative prowess. Chapters shall be as long as I can hold onto said prowess.**_

_***And another Chapter tided up. Hope you enjoy, and once again Thanks to my Beta and all those that have reviewed this fic.**_

_**Chapter Two: The key to future possibilities.**_

**Sari's Factory – Nighttime**

She reached out; card key in had and armed with the faint hope that this idea, no matter how far-fetched, would work. The card key was meant to open doors and stuff, so by all means there should be a chance it could open the cube and allow her to see inside. She approached tentatively, painfully aware that just because it looked fairly harmless did not mean it was so, having learned from some of the remnants around the factory.

She stepped up to the box, and gently tapped the key card against the glowing blue square that made up what was most likely the latch and turned away, eyes closed and awaiting something horrible to happen or appear. When nothing happened and she confirmed she was still standing and in one piece, she tried again, and again, and again. She poked and prodded with the key card on almost every surface of the thing, trying to figure out how she could open it. Finally giving in to frustration, she gave the cube a swift kick, which only resulted with her hopping around in pain and shouting at the offending box.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! Stupid box! Why won't you open?!"

Sari had been about to hit the box again in her anger, when she was suddenly thrown backwards as the box virtually exploded into action, expanding in a thousand directions at once and bits and pieces folding away into each other. After gaining her senses from falling to the floor, Sari scuttled backwards and away from the box in a panic, thinking she had gone and activated something that was bound to vaporize her.

Hiding behind a box, Sari curled up with her knees to her chest and arms over her head, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen. Except nothing happened. Looking over the top of the box, she saw that the room had been flooded with a beautiful blue and white light, which was coming from the now open cube.

Held in the cube, floating in mid-air, as it seemed, was a breath-taking crystal. It glowed with an almost ethereal light, and seemed to beckon her closer to it. Sari slowly got up from behind her hiding place and approached the box, still wary of what might happen.

Now in front of the box, she examined the crystal closer. The crystal itself had an almost greenish color, and the facets reminded her for some reason of something organic instead of a crystal. Sari was so caught up in the crystal that she was surprised when a beam of light shot out and seemed to run itself over her, and before she knew it, felt like she was being bombarded with millions of questions by a voice she could not understand. But none of it hurt, it just felt weird.

As soon as it had started it was over, and Sari was left wondering what had happened. She was about to voice her confusion when once again light shot from the crystal and connected with the key card that was still tightly gripped in her hand. The card key felt warm as the light obstructed it from sight, and she could feel it changing shape in her hand. Once the light dissipated and Sari rid herself of the imprint on her eyes, she could see that the card key had changed into something more along the lines of an old fashion key that her father used to have.

Sari stared at the crystal with an angry expression - that had little affect with her childish face - for having done something to what was a treasured part of her past life.

"What did you do you stupid crystal?! You better not have wrecked it!"

She did not get an answer from the box, not like she expected one. Instead it closed up like a clam, returning to its previous state as a mildly interesting box. Throwing one last look at it she turned her attentions to her card key, and examined the freshly transformed key. It now resembled one of those old-fashioned keys, except it looked like it was made out of a circuit board and the end looked like an old USB connector.

Turning it over a few times in her hand, she found that it had a hole near the top that she could probably thread something through, and quickly searched out something to do the trick. In no time she had found an old neck strap, like the one her key card had once before it had gotten lost. Threading it through the key and tying it tight, she hung the key around her neck. She decided to figure out if it did anything later, and for the moment would leave it be. Turning to the box, she tried to figure out what to do with the thing.

"What am I going to do with you? Can't just leave you laying around taking up space, and there is no way I am letting you zap more of my stuff. I better find someplace to hide you for now."

Looking around the room, she found something that fit the bill perfectly. An old containment chamber that had been among the many things her father had never been able to throw away and replace. Spending the next twenty minutes wrestling with the cube and the trolley, she finally got the thing inside and locked the heavy door.

Admiring her success, Sari happily turned away and left the strange cube in the shielded containment unit and left the room, unaware that she had come across something of infinite value, and unknowing that she was now part of a large conflict raging for longer than humankind had existed.

With nothing to worry about now, Sari sat down and started the fire again and in the light of the flames examined the key, while elsewhere there was an awakening in progress.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Lake Erie – Night Time**

Deep beneath the waters of the lake, deeper then most humans bothered to dive, and covered in layer of muck from the years it had laid there, was a ship. It was not a human ship, but a ship that had come from the depths of space.

The ship was devoid of life in general, with the exception of the ship's cargo hold, which due to a malfunctioning bay door was flooded and filled with the various wildlife that had made a haven in the metal sanctuary. Further on through the ship was the bridge, which was silent for the exception of the humming of machinery, coming from a set of five large pod-like devices.

The pods were easily larger then the average human, and even the un-average human would find themselves dwarfed by the things. A good guess at the size would be twenty-feet to more in height, and would make most people wonder what they were for. The clear glass fronts to the pods were useless, a thick layer of ice having formed on the inside and leaving the contents a mystery.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Sari's Factory – Night Time**

Back at the factory, Sari had managed to figure out absolutely nothing about the key or what the crystal had done to it. All it did was shine as the light of the fire glowed off its metal surface and look innocent, and nothing else. Finally giving up on trying to understand it for now, Sari decided to go for a walk.

Standing up, she made her way out of her factory home and started walking towards the nearby docks, and one of her father's many labs. After she had traveled on foot for almost an hour, she had reached the dock and easily found a way into the old factory, and started to wander around.

Sari remembered the times when her father had taken her here in his spare time, for reasons she had never understood and still didn't. Most of the times she had come here she had ended up in some out of the way room with her tutor-bot going on and on about some obscure subject that was never going to have any use in real life other then bore other people to death, or chasing Sparkplug around trying to get her card key back from the annoying metal pest.

Looking around, she found herself standing at the master control panel for the factory. She was about to just walk away and continue looking around when she spotted something that, normally, she would have just overlooked, but now it drew her attention. It was a key slot, one that an older model of key like hers was meant for. Looking down at her key and then the slot, Sari decided to give it a try.

She lifted the key up and plugged it into the key slot, and was rewarded with a 'click' as the key fit perfectly. It was almost like the key had changed shape to fit the lock, but that was impossible. Steeling her determination, Sari gave the key a twist and watched as the factory came to life around her.

Machines and assembly lines that had been offline for so long sprung to life, new energy flowing and giving them power. Robotic arms and tools started working, slicing and welding invisible metal that would have once moved along the line.

Sari looked around in wonder, watching as the factory worked again like magic. But what was happening was impossible; the power company had cut power to this building a long time ago. Trying to figure out how it was possible, Sari's gaze came to rest on her key, which was still connected to the control panel.

Elsewhere in the factory, in a sealed lab, a lone cockroach crawled among sealed and marked canisters. As the cockroach came to a mindless rest, a robotic arm sprung to life and, in its lifeless flailing, knocked over one of the canisters. A deep purple liquid spilled out, and coated the cockroach. In an instant, the purple substance seemed to soak into the poor insect, and before long it seemed to grow.

Sari was happy, watching the machines work again had brought back some of the good memories that she had of her father. But it was not to last, as an explosion rang out from the lab. Spinning her head, Sari looked off in the direction of the sound and grabbed her key and ran to investigate.

As she ran, she noticed that the machinery was powering down without the key to give it power anymore, and she could not help but feel sad that it had to stop. Not that the feeling lasted for long, as she rounded a corner and came to the origin of the explosion, and she was suddenly struck with fear.

Standing in the middle of the room, was a massive insect. And it was _still_ growing! Not sticking around to find out what had happened and how the insect had come to be, Sari ran for the exit and left the bug to its rampage.

**The Docks – Nighttime**

"All right! Time to bring out the big guns!"

Captain Fanzone kept his gaze on the over-sized insect that was currently threatening the dockside area and devouring everything metal it could get it hands on, and basically making a pest of itself. The monster had made an appearance a half hour ago; so far they had had no luck in stopping it, and it had consumed a number of police drones and various cars.

The Captain waited till the SWAT had lined up, and continued giving orders. On the other side of the dock, the monster was starting to gnaw on an old tanker, and he hated to think what would happen if it managed to get it down its gullet.

"And on my signal... fire!"

**Lake Erie – Nighttime**

Once again on the ship, deep underneath the waters of Lake Erie, a siren blared to life and a robotic voice rang out. The five pods started to hum as dormant systems came online, and the frost obscuring the glass began to clear.

**AN: Thanks again to reviewers. If you have any questions or anything, feel free to ask. And to you other Authors out there, help me start a revolution! This is the first dedicated Dcon!Sari fic on this site, and the basis deserves some attention. Bring the Dark Sari genre to life, and get writing! If anything, consider it a challenge to your talents. Can you write a fic that has Sari with the Decepticons and not the Autobots in such a way that it makes sense AND is good? Show me you can and help pioneer this new expanse!**


	3. Chapter 3

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, BlackArachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: **Once again, thanks to those that have reviewed this fic, and have given constructive advice and compliments. I would like to reward those who had been so kind as to do so with Chapter three of the Fic, pulled out earlier from the archives where I planned to keep it for a few days before posting it. Please enjoy. But after this there shall be a lull while I work on the next chapters**.

 **Chapter Three: Wake up calls and the start of a battle.**

**The Docks – Nighttime**

Sari watched from a distance through the darkness of the night as the massive insect tore through the police force, the fact that it had just been blown up not even slowing it down. The thing had just pulled itself back together and started attacking everything again. At first she had been sorry that she had unleashed this monster, since it had to be her. It had only appeared after she had used the key and brought the factory online.

Not that she felt sorry for long.

These people were part of the reason she had to live like she did, since they did not have room in their lives for a girl that did not 'Exist' as they had so politely put it. Instead, when her father died they had taken everything from her, thrown her on the streets to rot, forgotten about her like trash and taken over her father's company.

She soon found herself cheering for the insect, hoping that it ripped these people a new one, what ever that meant. Living on the streets had done much for her vocabulary, even if she did not know what half of what was said meant.

Her cheering had intensified after she had seen a very familiar yellow Bug with black racing stripes and the ever-noticeable bulk of Captain Fanzone. The big blowhard and Mr. Powell had been the ones to throw her out of the tower and her home along with the Board of Directors.

"Ya! Go bug go! Show 'em who's boss!"

Sari cheered and pranced from her perch on a nearby building like she was watching some sort of sport, taking guilty pleasure that the over-grown bug she had inadvertently created was walloping the police forces. The happiness turned to anger, however, as someone new arrived on the scene.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**  

**Near the docks – Nighttime**

"Driver, how long till we reach the docks and the crisis?"

The nervous young driver looked down to the left as the small viewscreen leading to the back of the limo tuned in to a cloud of heavy cigar smoke and an obscured face, the only defining feature being a set of rosy pink sunglasses that caught the light from the built-in comm. system. Trying not to stutter the young man quickly answered, knowing that the man in the back had been temperamental recently and would fire him without a thought for keeping him waiting.

"We are almost there now Mr. Powell sir. We have just received word that the Captain is already on the scene trying to contain the problem. As soon as we round the next turn we will be able to see it."

 "And Masterson?"

The nameless driver gulped at the name of the company's head robot designer, remembering the horrible times he spent shuttling the crazy scientist around the city for the most obscure of things.

"He reported in and said that he would not be able to deploy the unit, citing difficulties in the control systems, sir."

A quite grunt and the fire of a lighter filled the screen as the man in the back lit a new cigar, and shoved the remains of the last in an ashtray.

"Fine. That will be all driver. And before we finish, I don't want to see you as my driver again. Clear your locker out tonight and find yourself somewhere else to work, PoTech Industries does not have room for people who do not show proper respect for their betters."

The driver almost broke down then and there. This job had been all that stood between him and total poverty. In a city all but run by Potech Industries and every job requirement easily filled with a robot, a job was hard to come by. Trying to keep the choked edge from his voice he promptly answered.

"Yes sir, I will do that sir… We have arrived at the docks sir."

Powell rolled down the tinted window and looked into the night, and could clearly see the massive insect that was decimating the police force. The massive amounts of spotlights that were trained on it and its bulk easily made it visibly even on this moonless night.

He signaled for the driver to open the door and stepped out, dusting his immaculate white suit for any ashes and walked right through the police cordon and right up to the hefty police captain.

"Captain Fanzone, I presume you have the situation in hand? Do you have any idea where this thing came from?"

The Captain looked back and saw one of the most hated men he knew. The ever annoying Mr. Powell, CEO and founder of Potech Industries - the company that had taken the place of Sumdac Systems after the company's collapse - and one of the most powerful men in the city. Trying to refrain from the urge to reduce that smug face to a pulp each time he saw it, he kept his voice trimmed and his response as short as possible.

"No, we don't have the situation in hand. This thing just pulls itself back together each time we do any damage to it, and it keeps eating anything metal that gets too close. As far as we can tell, it came from an old Sumdac Systems research and development lab here on the docks. Best as the eggheads can figure, it was exposed to something inside that caused it to mutate. Now get outta here Powell, last thing I need is a lawsuit when this thing scuffs those nice Italian shoes of yours."

Powell was as close to exploding as a man could be, and what made it worse was that he could not even do anything. The Captain was one of the few men in the city that had the clout to say whatever they wanted to his face and could escape untouched. Turning on his heel, Powell entered his limo and ordered the driver back to company HQ.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Dockside – Nighttime**

Sari watched from her rooftop as the most hated man she could ever know exited the limo and walked up to Fanzone, her hands locked around the railing of the roof hard enough that her knuckles were turning white. That was the man that was responsible for everything after her father's death, if he had not done what he did she would still be her father's daughter and her father's company would still be around. After his death, Isaac had left a will, saying that everything was to go to he daughter Sari in the case of his death.

But Powell had come forth, and calmly stated that since there was no records of her anywhere, not even a single birth or medical record, that she could not claim anything that her father's will entitled her too since she did not technically exist and was therefore not entitled to what was legally hers.

After that, Powell had used legal loophole after loophole to seize Sumdac Systems and make himself the owner and CEO of the company. When Sari had tried to resist, he had simple had her thrown out of the tower by the good captain. Adoption or the orphanage was not an option, since by law she did not exist and therefore was outside the system. Not long after that the company had collapsed, as Powell deliberately tore it down from the inside with bad management, and in its place created PoTech.

She kept her eyes on Powell and the Captain, as they talked about - most likely - the monster that had been unleashed. After a few minutes, the two ceased their conversation and Powell went back to his limo and left. Gripping the key as the man drove away, she swore that if the key could bring the factory to life and somehow create that monster, then it could help her. Help her get back at Powell for wreaking her life.

Casting a look down at the monster and the police force, her thoughts elevated to a happier status at the thought of the Captain getting his due for helping Powell. Settling down on a ledge, Sari sat back and watched the show as the captain ordered a retreat.

As the police force fell back Sari noticed something strange; in the fact that there was a group of vehicles - which she had not noticed arrive - that were not among the retreating police. A SWAT armored car, a fire truck, a police pursuit bike, and lastly and most strangely an almost exact duplicate of the Captain's yellow Bug, right down to the racing stripes but missing the rust spots.

Standing up and leaning as far as the rail would let her, Sari tried to get a better look at what was happening.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Dockside – Nighttime**

"Fall back! All units fall back! We will engage with unmanned units only! I repeat! All units fall back!"

It was around this time that the Captain noticed that there was a select group of vehicles that were not falling back.

"Who the hell do those cowboy clowns think they are?!"

Shouting orders into the radio or the bullhorn did nothing to get the drivers of the vehicles attention and did wonders on raising Fanzone's blood pressure. That was when he noticed two things. One, being that there were no drivers. Two, being that his car was among the vehicles being chased around by the monster.

"What the hell is my car doing driving itself?!?!"

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Dockside – Nighttime**

"Prime, we could use a plan here. Or better yet, could we not be fighting a giant

monster that is trying to EAT US?!"

"Calm down Bumblebee, Ratchet is working on a solution as we speak."

This is was most active solar cycle his team had faced since their battle with Megatron and coming to this strange new world. It had also been the worst. They had been woken from stasis only to find the cargo hold flooded and the AllSpark gone, and now they were fighting some sort of mutant organic.

"Uh, Prime? I could kinda use a hand getting my hand back."

Prime looked over and saw that indeed Bulkhead needed a hand, in getting back his hand - which had been sucked inside the monster - and ran to help.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Dockside – Nighttime**

Sari watched as the cars became giant robots, and proceeded to trash the insect she had been cheering for just moments ago. She watched as the joke of a police force just stood there slack-jawed and the robots went on to save the day. It was simply incredible to watch. But something seemed off about them.

The robots seemed to be arguing among each other at times, even if the large red one seemed to be the one in charge. The black-and-gold one seemed to want to work alone, using what appeared to be ninja fighting moves and throwing stars, and the green one just seemed to be trying not to get grabbed and eaten by the monster while fighting it with the wreaking balls its hands turned into. She kinda liked the yellow one, which had been the duplicate of the Captain's car. Even if it did not seem to be doing a lot of damage with the lasers in its hands, the yellow one seemed to be trying the hardest.

The bots pummeled and chopped and sliced and zapped the insect, but it just regenerated itself afterwards. Sari was absolutely riveted as the loner got sucked inside the insect when it tried to attack, and she could swear she heard the bots yelling out to the unfortunate black-and-gold bot.

After that the action picked up, with the insect capturing all but the little yellow bot. Now that Sari really paid attention, the yellow one kinda reminded her of a bee. The yellow paint job and the black stripes, coupled with the agility of the bot, definitely reminded her of a bee.

She held her breath as the bot leapt from the top of a nearby building and right into the monster's mouth, seemingly to its doom. Both Sari and the police force watched as the insect seemed to freeze for some reason, before bursting into a cloud of ash and smoke.

By time Sari could see through the smoke from where she was, there was nothing besides a pile of ash. The bots had disappeared, and the police seemed to be trying to find where they had gone. Spotting a few police coming towards the building she was hiding on, Sari had no choice but to leave it to another time and head back to the factory. Besides, she wanted to find out what else the key could do.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Dockside – Nighttime**

"So is he alright Ratchet?"

Prime and his crew stood in the medical bay of their ship, surrounding their teammate Prowl, who had taken damage in the fight. A large part of his chest plate had been torn away and exposed his inner workings to the outside world. Ratchet was currently hunched over the mech, trying to see the extent of the damage.

"Ya, he'll be alright. He's just going to need some work here in the medbay. But there is something I think you need to see Prime; something that Teletran-1 picked up before, during and after the fight."

Before Ratchet could continue, the bot in question groaned as he came out of recharge. Looking around, he asked the most obvious of questions.

"Wha… what happened?"

"Simple Prowl," Prime responded, "these bots saved your circuitry. Now rest, we will talk about your rash nature later. Right now Ratchet has something important to show us."

Prime nodded and signaled that it was okay to continue, and Bumblebee and Bulkhead quickly fell in line as Ratchet brought up the video of the fight. Prowl was able to watch from the table.

"Alright Ratchet, show me what you've got."

Ratchet nodded and started up the recording, and started explaining what was wrong with the picture in front of them.

"Now, before Teletran-1 woke us up outta sleep mode, it deployed a SkySpy to get a basic idea of what was going on up there. Now, at first glance this is nothing but a recording of the organics that are the apparent dominant life forms of this planet trying to fight off that beast. But look up here in this quadrant, on top of this building. There is something very strange up there."

Ratchet pointed out the building and zoomed the recording in. And soon enough they could clearly see a small form that was watching the fight and seemed to be cheering on the monster.

"Whoever this is up here, they seem to be actively encouraging the beast. Now it might just be me, but I think that the beast was not a random thing. It was created. When I examined the sample that invaded out ship, the readings confirmed that it had only been active for a short time."

Prime knew where this was going.

"So this was not a random attack, but a planned one?"

Ratchet nodded, and Bumblebee and Bulkhead started getting visions of other such creatures running around.

"Yes, I think so Prime. Someone planned for that thing to attack, and they planned for those armed forces to try and stop it. By watching the video, I can confirm that, if this was a planned attack, who ever is up on the building has at least two targets. Just watch the vid and you will see. That is, if you young-bots can pay enough attention."

The vid moved on, to another scene just after they had arrived and blended in with the locals. Ratchet pointed out the hidden watcher again on the screen, while the screen split to show the gathering of armed forces that were trying to fight, and then pointed out an organic that stood out. A large, hefty organic in dark covering who was waving some sort of device around.

"Now watch the reaction of the watcher when this hefty one here starts acting up."

The crew watched as the figure on the roof suddenly tensed, and focused on the pointed out organic. They could literally see the anger in the tiny figure even if they could not see the facial details. Bumblebee was the first to speak up.

"Whoa, whatever is going on between these two is serious. Whoever was watching looks like they're going to blow a crank case, or whatever it is organics do when they get mad."

Prowl, on the other hand, was more interested in watching the vid than listening to Bumblebee.

"Quite Bumblebee, Ratchet said there were two targets, and that was only one."

BB was reduced to grumbling, while Ratchet and Prime moved on with the vid.

"Now watch this you Bots, if you think that last one was being mad then it's got nothing on this. Whoever this is, is in a lot of danger if whoever it was that was watching _did_ create that thing and decides to do it again."

The crew watched as a large black vehicle pulled up to the rear of the fight, and a plump round figure stepped out and into the open. With the zoom on the SkySpy they were able to make out the features of the organic. Lightly colored strands with what looked like a pink visor on a rounded face. But it was not the features of the organic that caught their attention; it was the reaction it garnered from the one who was watching.

The figure looked ready to jump off the roof and strangle the man. It had its servos - or whatever they were called here - wrapped tightly on the railing, to the point the soft covering on them had turned almost white.

Bumblebee, once again, was the first to speak up.

"Why are you even showing us this Ratchet? Why should we worry that one organic wants to slag another? It's not our problem is it?"

Before Prime or Ratchet could answer, Bulkhead did. And he explained it rather well.

"Well little buddy, it kinda is. The ship is trashed and the AllSpark is lost somewhere on this planet, and without them we are not going anywhere. We need materials to fix the ship, and to do that we would have to bargain with the natives. And they could even help us find the AllSpark maybe."

"Bulkhead is right," Prime said, "We need to repair the ship, and find the AllSpark. The best way to do that is to get to know the locals and try to establish a relation with them. So starting now, we are going to use the local DataNet to learn what we can, understood?"

The team, for the exception of the still incapacitated Prowl, all gave their half-sparked agreements, before they went to find a terminal they could access the DataNet from. Turning to Ratchet, Prime asked him a few last minute questions.

"Ratchet, is there anything else we should know?"

The elderly bot shook his head.

"No, nothing else. I just got a bad feeling about this in my fuel tanks Prime - something about this is not right. Just not right at all."

**AN: ****Might not be the best, but I started to lose my edge as it wore on. But I tried right? Anyways, lots of stuff this chapter. Sari learns a little about her key, and starts off on a dark path. The Autobots do not have anyone to guide them this time around, so now they have to try and figure out themselves what to do. Sari is noticed, but not discovered by the Autobots. What will happen next chapter? And will I finally get a Beta that can help me do a basic fight scene and can help me write good dialogue? Lets find out next time!**


	4. Chapter 4

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, BlackArachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: **I am extremely sorry to those that have stayed and waited for another chapter, enduring the long hours for another update. I have been extremely busy, and with the loss of my Beta Apparent, it has been difficult to say the least. But now I am back, and hope to get back to a more regular updating pattern. I am also very sorry for the sheer shortness of this chapter, but it cannot be helped. I promise that the next one will be longer and much more detailed. Once again thanks to those that have reviewed this fic, and have given constructive advice and compliments.**

**Chapter Four: Turning the key**

**Sari's Factory – Early morning**

Sari could not help but laugh as a rough plastic tongue was run over her face, as the now repaired and reactivated SparkPlug jumped and woofed and ran all over the factory floor. It had started as another test of what her new key could do, but now it was just time to play and have some fun with her pet.

She giggled as the robotic puppy leapt from its position on her stomach and bounded off into the factory, most likely to find something to play with or chew on. As she watched the pet bounce around the room she remembered how she had gotten him back.

A few days had passed since the massive insect incident and the world now knew of the Transformers, a race of advanced, sentient robots. There had been some confusion when they had first appeared, but after the first few rounds fired peaceful talks had gotten off the ground fairly well.

Sari had been able to keep up with the rapid progression of the Autobots' interactions with the city, since with the key she had been able to repair her father's computer, bring it online, and tap into the local DataNet.

Besides watching the Autobots, she had been busy testing out the key. After witnessing it bring the factory to life, Sari just had to know if it could do more. So she used the broken machines in the factory as test subjects, it was not like they could complain if anything went wrong, right?

She had learned that the key could fix almost everything, and even make them better. She had also learned that if she focused while she used it, she could control what it did. So far she had fixed up many of the robots that had been lying around the factory, in addition to her father's computer.

Now the repaired machines wandered around the factory, doing whatever it was their lingering programming told them to do. Sari's biggest success so far had been the old security bots, the small hovering drones now followed the young girl everywhere around the factory. It was almost like they were obsessed with her in their own limited way, something in their programming making them stick to Sari like glue.

But obsessive machines aside, she had been busy with other things as well. She had spent some time trying to reopen the cube she had found, but with little luck. The patterned box remained closed and unresponsive to everything she could think of, and so the crystal that was hidden inside also remained hidden from her. So, for the moment, she had given up on it and had moved on to other things. Things like her current supplies, and what in the world she was going to do with an almost-army of robots?

**AN: And that is the end of the edited and slightly lengthened chapter four, hope you enjoyed.**


	5. Chapter 5

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N: ****Hey again, Nocturne here with another update. Thanks for the warm welcome back, and I hope you have taken a look at my new side fic. But this new side fic does come with some bad news, in the fact that Titan's Servant is being put on an indefinite hold for the moment due to some recent developments. But enough with the bad news, and on to answers. A few of you have asked me a few questions in the latest reviews and a few PM's, so I have decided to take some time to answer them.**

**Number one on the list is****: When is Sari going to bring back Megatron? ****My answer to this is soon. But I need to fill in a few things first, and get the Decepticons brought in before that. Maybe in the next chapter or two he will be making his first live appearance, or at least as lively as a disembodied head can get.**

**Number two on the list is: ****When are the Decepticons making an appearance? ****My answer to this is now. They will be making a minor appearance in this chapter, but nothing major.**

**There are a few more, but I am only really willing to answer the most general ones at this moment. Now on with the chapter.**

**Chapter Five: Fame and the start of misfortune**

**Autobot Ship**

Prime sagged weakly in his chair, located in his quarters. Exhausted after another endless day of interaction with the local humans and their almost endless questions that had gone on for hours, just one question after another after another, with the constant flash and hum of the various cameras and flying television drones as they were recorded for the whole city to see. And even with the local interaction, they had gotten nowhere closer to finding the missing AllSpark or gathering the materials needed for repairing the ship.

Bumblebee, on the other hand, just took it all in stride. Prime could swear the diminutive yellow mech had been built and programmed for taking up the spotlight, the way he seemed not to care that they were not even getting serious consideration by the residents of the city. So far they were only a sensation of sorts, sweeping the city as the newest public interest. Bulkhead and Prowl seemed to be unbothered by the constant observation wherever they went, except when Prowl was indulging in his interests of the more peaceful, organic aspects of the world and Bulkhead was trying to keep calm and not crush anything in his nervousness. Ratchet just seemed to get even more grumpy then normal and stayed in the ship for the most part.

Prime would sigh if he could, somewhat wishing he were capable of the human expression. From what he could tell it would be a very accurate way to express himself, but then again he could not. Turning his thoughts away from everything else for the moment, he activated his data terminal and accessed the local data network to continue his research on the area and recent developments within the 50 years since their coming here.

So far, his research had not been all that fruitful, with only little if anything of great importance happening that could be related to the AllSpark. The only thing that truly garnered any attention so far was an article about a company that had collapsed only a few years ago. But it was what the company did before it collapsed that interested Prime.

The company had been the leading and largest company when it came to the design and construction of the latest and most advanced robotic technology, and even now its sales records and popularity outdid the current leader, Potech. The robots produced by Sumdac Systems were reliable, and long lasting. They worked hard and were the most advanced robots of their time, and even now they were still more advanced then most of the robots currently on the market. And it had not been hard to discover why.

And the why worried him more then anything else at the moment.

::::_Flashback::::_

_Prime walked into the ship's medbay, a serious expression on his faceplate. Everyone else besides him and Ratchet had left the ship and gone ashore to explore the city, and he had been about to join them when he received an urgent message from the team medic to meet him in the medbay for an important discovery. He had not wasted time and had rushed to the medbay, knowing that anything the medic had to tell him would be worth his time in the long run._

_He found the medic hunched over a pair of Earth bots, the two machines different in almost every way, the make and model of both almost unnatural when placed side by side. Ratchet was hunched over them closely, tools in hand as he poked and prodded around the opened chest cavities of the two drone-like machines __with his scanner lens over his optics and glowing brightly. Trying not to disturb the elder mech, Prime gently tapped the medic on the shoulder to gain his attention._

_Ratchet looked up from his work, and seeing that Prime was present and waiting, quickly put away his tools and tidied up before turning to the young leader and explaining why he had called him._

"_Now I bet you're wondering why I called you here, right Prime?"_

_Prime nodded, deciding that it would be best to just listen for now._

_Ratchet nodded as well and gestured to the two robots laying side by said on the table._

"_I've been looking into something Prime, and I've come across a few things I think you need to know. As you and I both know now, there was a human company a few years back that was the leading developer in robotics and went by the name of Sumdac Systems. The robots designed and built there were apparently some of the most advanced ever seen to date, surpassing even the newest of the Potech robots, and there is a good reason why. Look at the screen and tell me what you see Prime, and think real hard before you answer."_

_Prime did as he was advised and watched the screen as what appeared to be designs and blueprints came to life on the screen. He watched for a few moments, wondering what he was supposed to be seeing before it hit him, and hard. With a sinking feeling in his spark he turned his attention back to Ratchet._

"_These were Cybertronain in design, weren't they?"_

_Ratchet nodded gravely, then pointed at one of the bots on the table and explained._

"_This bot is from Sumdac Systems. What you just saw is an analysis of its circuitry and inner workings. Prime, this bot, it's built from copied Cybertronain tech! Badly recreated, but still. Someone designed and built this thing based on Cybertronain technology, using replicated techniques to do so. But, whoever did it was not able to do so _and_ keep the technology stable and dependable by any means. Same thing goes with all the other Sumdac bots I examined; they are all built with copied tech. By all means these people were lucky that the things didn't malfunction and go on a rampage or something - the circuitry is unstable at best, and half of everything else seems ready to fall apart."_

_Ratchet ran a hand over his helmet, idly scratching his chevron and continued._

"_But somehow it didn't. These bots held together for Primus knows how long, and that they even worked to the point that they did is driving me slaggin' crazy! But that is not the main reason, even if it's one of em."_

_Prime was now paying full attention to Ratchet, wondering where he was heading with this. The fact that at some point a human had been tampering with Cybertronain tech worried him enough, and made him wonder where the human in question had gotten access to such a thing. But it looked like Ratchet was about to make it even worse. The look on the medic's face spoke volumes as the elder mech spoke in a calm and quite voice, with a heavy sense of seriousness._

"_Prime, this is not just Cybertronain. This is Decepticon tech, and elite Decepticon tech at that. The kind of tech only given to officers in the Decepticon forces."_

_::::Flashback end::::_

After that, he had ordered his team to be on full alert at all times while they were in the city, to keep an audio open and an optic wide, and be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. He had also ordered Prowl to investigate the factory where they had fought that massive insect, Ratchet having confirmed that the thing had been created by nanites of a primitive and poorly made Cybertronain kind.

In the meantime, he and Ratchet had devoted themselves to finding out more about Sumdac Systems and its history in-between the meetings with various city delegates. The only problem was that there was nothing to find, for almost everything concerning Sumdac Systems was almost non-existent. It was like someone had gone to great lengths to make sure the company was never remembered by anyone. They only thing that they had found was that Sumdac Systems had a large amount of old and now abandoned labs and warehouses scattered throughout the city.

Prime leaned back, rubbing his tired optics and hoping the after image would fade from looking at the screen so long as questions buzzed in his mind: What was happening in this city? Why was there a boom in robots that were based on copied Decepticon tech, and where did it come from? Why the sudden collapse of a profitable company and the replacement of the more advanced bots with the more simplistic and totally human-made robots? Were there Decepticons in the city, running the show from behind the scenes, or was there a more innocent reason to the tech used in the older robots? There were so many questions, and so few ways for Prime to answer them right now. He could only hope that whatever was happening, he would be able to understand it before it put him and his team at risk, and cost them the AllSpark.

**::::Scene Change::::**

**City Outskirts**

Blackaracnia finished hiding the remains of her escape pod, not wanting it to be found till much later. She needed to get accustomed to this new world and its inhabitants before she made any major moves. Looking out over the city of Detroit, she idly thought on how it looked a bit like her home-city back on Cybertron, back from before her… transformation.

Shaking herself free of those distracting thoughts, Blackarachnia transformed and started making her way into the city. She had a mission to complete, after all.

**AN:****Once again, a hard couple of hours spent on trying to provide a quality chapter to you, my few devoted readers. Now that I have the time and the means, I will be updating regularly, or at least as much as I can. But enough blather, its time for me to head out. R&R, and good night/day folks!**


	6. Chapter 6

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**A AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachina and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: **Hey again, its me with another chapter. As a few of you know, there is a poll up in my profile for this story, on the slight manner that a good amount of the human villains in TF:A are not quite what I am looking for in this fic, so I figure that we need a few Transformers to add to the mix. No OC's or anything, just canon characters from other Trans-verses. Vote on if you want me to, or keep to the human villains. If you do I will be a very happy Kitsune. ;)**

**If you have any transformers in particular you would like to see brought in, plz PM or leave a suggestion in a review. There will be a total of four Transformers brought in if the current vote passes, and if I get a lot of requests for a whole lot, I will make another poll so you can vote. Also, remember: Good reviews raise my confidence and help fuel my creativity, which means the next chapter comes out all the sooner… Just joking, but still, good reviews are welcome.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter. I hope you enjoy this latest and biggest update to MBSTS.**

**Chapter 6: Break ins, Investigations, and a Spider on the walls**

**Sari's Factory - Late Afternoon**

Sari sat in the lab room on her father's chair and grumbled as she tried to sew shut the latest hole in her grungy clothes, and patch the latest tear to appear. She honestly had no talent when it came to something like this - often doing more damage then good and putting more pins into her fingers then the clothes themselves - and was lucky she did not sew her fingers together at some points.

Growling more fiercely then a normal eight-and-a-half-year old child should be able too, she tossed the ruined piece of clothing to the side to join the pile of its fabric-based brothers and turned on the large monitor and tuned in to the news channel. Sari was still honestly surprised at the amount of channels she got with her father's computer, but just put it down in her head as it being a pretty advanced computer.

The news was the same as it had been for the last while, with updates on the Transformers' talks with the city delegates, and video footage of them around town apparently exploring and seeing the sights. According to the news lady, the Autobots had recently brought up the issue of finding something extremely important that they had lost when they crashed on Earth, as well as somehow trading for materials to repair their ship with. Sari huffed, not really impressed with what was basically the same thing they had reported a few hours ago, and turned off the screen and looked at the pile of ruined clothing.

They were all she had left, and the state they were in now rendered them un-wearable. That meant she would have to go and get more or else she would really be in rags, and there was no way she was going to do that. Letting herself be reduced to rags would mean that she had given up, and there was no way that the fiery girl would let that happen. She may have been reduced to stealing to survive, but she would not let herself just lie down and accept it. She was going to fight, and take down Powell and get revenge for what he had done to her.

Sari knew that this was not what her father would want, but this was what _she_ wanted. She wanted Powell to know that no one could knock a Sumdac down and just walk away, not without a fight. Throwing the pile of clothes a dirty look she turned around and stomped out of the room.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Dockside Lab - Late Afternoon**

It was dark; rubble and debris littered the hole in the side of the building that housed the dockside lab that once belonged to Sumdac Systems. For a normal human, it would have taken forever to clear a way into the building. But for Prowl, it was simplicity within itself. Even if he was nowhere as strong as his large comrade Bulkhead or his leader Prime, he was still strong enough to clear a way into the lab with relative ease. After a path was cleared, Prowl entered and started his investigation as Prime had ordered.

It was not hard to find the origin point for the insect they had fought, if the expanding path of destruction was any clue to follow. He backtracked the monster's route out of building to the ruined remains of what he assumed was a lab. Not being able to see any other route the insect could have come from, he started to look around for any clues, his sharp optics peeled for anything that could explain what created the beast. He soon found the answer, or at least a partial one.

Picking up an empty canister, Prowl pulled out the scanner Ratchet had given him, ran it over the container and read the results.

"Interesting. This does test positive for the nanites that created the beast, but it also tests for a strange energy pattern. I don't think I have ever come across anything like it. I should investigate more."

Prowl set the now confirmed source of the nanites and the beast aside and made a mental note to retrieve it before he left. As he moved from the lab and into the other parts of the building, the scanner picked up more and more of the remnant energy pattern, but this confused Prowl even more. Normally energy signatures would fade away after a few hours to perhaps a few days, but this one was still strong the farther from the lab he moved. Much of the machinery and circuitry he passed seemed to have the strongest readings as he went.

Before long, Prowl located the strongest signature in the entire factory, or at least the strongest so far. The control panel in front of him was almost glowing with latent energy, whatever having charged it leaving it with a significant charge even after having been gone for several days now. Prowl looked around to see if there was anything else that warranted attention, but for the moment it appeared that he had gathered everything he needed. He turned on his heel and headed back to the lab to recover the canister and then exit the building. He needed to get these results back to Ratchet and Prime immediately.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Sari's Factory - Nighttime**

Sari pulled a raggedy backpack off a makeshift hook and started piling in everything she would need for the night, including a lock pick and her hacking tool. Her life after losing her father and her home had forced her to learn how to use these tools to stay alive, and now she could swear by them. She briefly thought about not taking her stun gun, since she now had the little security drones following her everywhere, but decided to take it anyways. She might need it in case the drones just buzzed there and did nothing to help her if she was caught. After she had everything she needed, she pulled a catalog from a pile of them on the floor that she routinely used as kindling for fire.

She leafed through the book, till she came across what she wanted and smiled. There in the magazine, was an ad for a clothing store not far from here. That was exactly what she needed, and even better, there was a small warning saying that the store was undergoing remodeling this week and would be closed. That meant that its security system would be offline while they made the changes, and she could get in easy. She tossed the magazine to the side and started for the door, before realizing something. She needed to get any clothes that she got back here, and her backpack was full with all her stuff. Sari wondered how she was going to do it when she remembered that she had a valuable resource at her fingertips that would help with this problem.

The eight-year old looked towards one of the many stacks of robots that lined the walls of her factory home, and as she approached them she pulled her key from underneath her clothing.

She wandered the racks, looking for just the right robot. She might be eight years old but she had life lessons now that she had not had before, and that involved not just grabbing any tool to use, but also the right one for the right job. She had had too many accidents going through the stuff from her dad's workshop to not know better by now. She shivered as one time in particular came to mind.

"_Right tool for the right job, just like Daddy used to say. I sure don't want it backfiring like that stupid screwdriver-thing, or else it's going to be way worse then before. I could end up in jail if I mess up…"_

She idly massaged her hands as the vivid and painful memories of reaching into a crate to grab a harmless looking screwdriver turned bad as she grasped the metal point, and was rewarded with an electric shock up and down her arm. By time the pain went away, her arm was completely numb and red, and she was getting a static shock each time she touched something metal. She had immediately thrown the thing out, and tried to avoid the mistake again. As it stood now, Sari never grabbed any tool unless she could identify a handle to grab it by. She was knocked out of her thoughts as she spotted just the right robot on the storage rack.

It was of a generic design, and looked like most of the robots that her father's company had built, except that it had a bulkier torso, with what looked like a backpack of its own. She wrestled it off the rack and gave it a once over, confirming that it was one of the bots built to transport packages around the city like a delivery boy, and then started the process of using her key to reactivate it and bring it online. A flash of light and a few small arcs of stray electricity and the bot was standing on its own and ready to go. Sari took a moment to pull out her hacking tool and give the bot some basic programming, and once she was happy with her work she motioned for it to follow her as she made her way to the door out.

The optics on the bot flashed, and it started to follow her just like it was supposed to. Sari was a bit surprised though when what looked like roller-skates took the place of its feet and it started rolling circles around her as it followed. She flashed a smile, one more for herself then anything, and led the way out of the factory and onto the streets. She was glad that it was nighttime and there was no one out, or else she would be drawing a lot of attention, what with a small swarm of old security drones and a bulky delivery bot following her around. After looking around to make sure that there was absolutely no one around, Sari pulled up the hood on her dusty hoodie and started making her way through the back alleys towards her destination, followed by her small contingent of robot helpers.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Autobot Ship – Nighttime**

Ratchet slowly went over the recovered sample of nanites and the canister that contained them, while Teletran-1 compared the energy readings taken by Prowl and tried to find a viable match in the system database. He had been right when he had said that the nanites behind the beast had been of a Cybertronain design, even if it was poorly reproduced. The nanites themselves seemed to just run rampant rather than do anything useful, at least without some sort of control system like the one present in a Cybertronain's body. He was disturbed from his observations as Teletran-1 beeped and informed him in its plain tone that it had found a match to the energy pattern that Prowl had found.

The medic quickly left his seat and typed up the command to display the results on Teletran-1, and was shocked by what the computer told him.

"It's impossible… but it's a match. Prime needs to know, and now."

Ratchet hit the button for the comm. a bit more forcefully than needed, but this was important, and Prime needed to be informed of this as soon as possible, even if he and the rest of the team were out on patrol. The medic was relieved for some reason when the younger bot and leader answered the comm.

"_What is it Ratchet? Any news on the nanites or anything?"_

Ratchet took a moment and then answered, wondering how he was going to word his discovery.

"_No, but it's just as important. Teletran-1 just finished comparing that energy pattern Prowl found in the lab to the ones that it has on file, and… it found a match Prime."_

Prime found himself worrying at the tone in the older mech's voice, and wondered if the bot was always going to be a bearer of bad news. He would shake his head and rid himself of these thoughts, if he was not in vehicle mode and trying to keep Bumblebee under control.

"_Something tells me I am not going to like the match Ratchet, but you might as well tell me."_

Ratchet paused, and decided that the straight answer was the only one that would work.

"_It's the AllSpark Prime, that entire factory and lab has AllSpark energy all over __it. But the signature is too small to be the AllSpark itself, and the SkySpy would have detected it when we first came out of stasis. It's like someone took a battery or some other energy storage device and charged it with the AllSpark's energy, and then let the charge out in the factory."_

Prime almost ran himself off the road before he recovered from the shock, and was glad that Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Prowl seemed too caught up in their little squall to notice. Trying to keep himself calm, he answered as neutrally as possible.

"_Something tells me that's not all you're worried about Ratchet."_

"_And you would be right Prime, since what I just described is impossible. During the war, the Autobot Ministry of Science attempted for stellar-cycles to try and create a device to store AllSpark energy and transport it to the battlefield for both medical and tactical purposes. Can you imagine it Prime, a device that could bring the healing and energizing properties of the AllSpark without the risk of losing the AllSpark itself? We could have won the war in half the time if we did. But we never succeeded, and the project was dropped. Now we come here, and the AllSpark is lost again just after we find it. It stays hidden or is kept hidden for 50 years before we wake up from stasis, and meanwhile, the thing we tried to do during the Great War is apparently done in that same 50 years? I am worried Prime. This planet keeps hitting us with one thing after another, and sooner or later it's going to hit us with something we can't handle."_

Prime couldn't agree more with Ratchet, as the medic's worries were not exactly unfounded. If anything, the medic had very good reason to be worried, what with the possibility of Decepticons being inside the city, and that mysterious figure that apparently had murderous intentions and access to the technology that created the monster insect they had fought. And now the prospect that someone in the city had the AllSpark and was using it? Even Prime was worried at this point.

There were simply too many questions and not enough answers for them all, and sooner or later one of those questions was going to come back to bite them in the aft and hard, unless they figured it out first. He was about to answer, when he picked up a police bulletin saying that there was a break-in in progress and the officer on scene had been disabled and back up was needed.

"_I understand Ratchet, and we will finish this later. But right now there is trouble and we are going to go assist the local law keeping with a break-in. Keep me informed of any more developments. Prime out."_

Prime cut the comm., and looked over at the three that were with him. Bumblebee was being Bumblebee and was close to causing a traffic accident; that was, if there was any traffic this late at night. Bulkhead was trying to get Bumblebee to stop driving so reckless, and Prowl was ignoring the both of them for the moment and seemed lost in thought. Absently wondering what it would be like with a squad of trained Elite Guard members, Prime shuddered at the idea. While they might not be Elite Guard, the bots with him were just as good. With a burst of confidence, he called out to his men.

"All right, knock it off! There is a break-in not far from here and the local police need help, help we are going to give. Autobots, form up and roll out!"

With a minimal amount of grumbling, Bumblebee formed up, while Bulkhead did so with enthusiasm. Prowl just maintained his calm and quite exterior, and fell into formation with ease. Once everyone was ready, Prime led the way to the scene of the break-in.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Store on the downtown edge – The Lurking Fiend, fashion for the emotionally twisted.**

"_Maybe I should have paid more attention to what type of fashion store I was breaking into exactly."_

Sari stepped over the twitching unconscious body of the police officer, and the delivery bot did the same. Not exactly comfortable with the fact that she was going to have to settle for Goth clothing but having to anyways, she quickly started pulling clothes off the racks and handing them to the bot, who carefully placed them in its backpack and in compartments throughout it's bulky torso. She knew she did not have a lot of time, the officer having snuck up on her just as she managed to get into the store. The security drones had managed to knock him out with stun guns of their own before he had managed to do anything more then put out an alert that there was a break-in.

She went like a whirlwind through the store, grabbing whatever she could see that was her size. She had to act fast before the police arrived and sealed up the building. But that did not stop her from admiring a nice pair of knee-high black army boots and tossing them to her helper, and then continuing onwards through the store. Pretty soon, her robotic helper informed her in a rather annoying tone that it was now full and could not hold anymore clothing. Sari sighed, wishing she could get some more clothing but decided to settle for what she had at the moment. She rushed towards the back exit, even as the telltale flash of blue-red lights started to show through the windows. But just as she was about to reach the exit she noticed a few things poking out from behind a counter.

Quickly kneeling down, a smile spread across the eight-year old's face. Behind the counter was a helmet and roller-skates that were just her size, as well as some kneepads and gloves. She quickly took off her shoes and pulled the roller-skates on, and just as quickly strapped on the pads and gloves. She turned and skated for the exit, pulling on the helmet as she went even as the front door to the store busted open and masked police officers stormed in yelling and screaming for everyone to freeze. Not that they got the response they wanted, since Sari was already out the door. But they did get a response of sorts.

Sari's security drones had not exited, and they took the actions of the masked and armed police officers as a threat. So they did as they were programmed to and opened fire, the ten or so drones filling the air with concentrated blasts of electricity from their stun guns and dropping the first and second lines of police into piles of twitching and unconscious bodies. The other police who had stayed outside took cover, expecting weapons fire to burst out the windows and to start peppering them. Sari just laughed at them from a nearby alley and ran back into the backstreets, with her drones exiting the back door and following not far behind. She finally made it to what she thought was a safe distance and took a break, leaning against the side of a big green van and started to catch her breath.

When she finally managed to catch her breath and look up, there was a wide smile on her face. She started cheering and jumping in the middle of the street, happy that she had succeeded.

"Yes! Wahoo! We did it, and they didn't even see me!"

Sari jumped up and gave the uncaring delivery bot a hug, before reaching out and grabbing one of the little security drones and spinning around and around with it, holding on by the little nubs it used as guns. Once she let go, the little bot wobbled in the air, almost like it was dizzy, and moved to rejoin its swarming brethren. Not paying attention to the agitated little bots, she continued to prance and jump at her own success, so much so she did not notice the large red fire truck until she hit the front grill painfully and fell back on her rear. Standing up with her good mood soured, she kicked the front of the truck fiercely, before turning around and noticing that something was strange with her surroundings.

The great big van she had been leaning against was really an armored SWAT van, and across the street was a police bike colored in gold and black, with a little yellow Bug nearby with black racing strips that looked just like the hated Captain Fanzone's car but without the rust spots. Starting to feel a sinking sensation in her gut she turned around and saw a long dark alley leading to who knows where behind her. Trying to see through the dark alley she could swear she saw something skitter along the alley and up the wall - something very, very large. But before she could wonder what it was exactly her delivery bot tapped her shoulder and tried to get her attention, and she almost jumped. She turned around to yell at it for scaring her and jotted down a mental note to give it a name to call it by, but her anger was replaced by a sensation of fear again as she noticed that the bike and car that had been on the other side of the road were now on this side, and with the armored van and the fire truck, they formed a semi-circle around her.

But that was not what was really scaring her, it was the fact that they had moved so silently, and the fact that all four vehicles had no drivers to speak off. Even through the tinted glass she could see no drivers inside, and with the bike it was pretty obvious since no one was sitting in the seat. The sinking feeling in her gut turned into one of doom as she realized exactly where she recognized these vehicles from, and summed up her situation in a few short words.

"I am in _sooo_ much trouble now, ain't I?"

Like Sari expected, she got an answer in the form of a booming and strict sounding voice coming from the fire truck.

"Yes you are, now surrender and order your bots to stand down. We don't want to hurt you, and if you just give up then there won't be any trouble. Besides, what's a human minor like you _doing_ breaking into a store and stealing, much less knocking out a good chunk of the police force sent to stop you with a squadron of rouge bots?"

Not really waiting for an answer, the four vehicles seemed to transform, and Sari found herself staring up to the towering figures of the Transformers. Even in her numb panic at being caught by the worst possible people to be caught by, she still remembered their names from the news reports and was able to pin a name to each of then. The big green one that had been the armored van was Bulkhead, and the black-and-gold one that had been the motorbike was Prowl. The short yellow one that had been the Bug was Bumblebee, and last but not least was their leader Optimus Prime.

As Sari panicked and the Autobot leader stared her and her bots down, none of them noticed the eight glowing optics of the lithe spidery figure that was watching from the alley, with a dark glint in them as they seemed to focus on Prime.

**A/N2: And there's the end of the biggest chapter so far in MBSTS, with Sari trapped by the Autobots after her daring theft and a dark figure in the shadows watching. Like seriously, anyone that cannot guess who that is has not been paying attention to the story or the title, or is just blind. But anyways, this chapter is done for now. R&R, and vote! See you soon, Nocturne No Kitsune signing out!**


	7. Chapter 7

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: **And another chapter, that was a both a pleasure and a nightmare to write. Hope you like it, and thanks to the readers so far for your positive and encouraging reviews, as well as thanks once again to the hard work of Zim'sMostLoyalServant for the efforts put forth in beta'ing.**

**Chapter Six: Life's a real Scream**

**Deep Space – The Nemesis**

Metallic fingers sharpened to deadly points clicked idly against the armrest, part of one of the only surviving bits of the command deck. Red optics were stuck to the only working monitor as it displayed the results of the latest in a series of long-range scans, and gleamed in anger and frustration as the same results as before.

'_Scan unsuccessful, energy signature not found. Continue scanning Y/N?'_

A high nasally voice rang out, reminiscent of rusty nails on a chalkboard. There was a perceptible edge of impotent anger to it, like the owner wanted to lash out and destroy the piece of hardware before it. Not that he would, it was one of the few things he could get working around here, and he was not going to trash it and end up fixing it again.

"Yes, yes, scan again! Divert all remaining power to scanners and increase to maximum range. Use data-files and find a match for the previous AllSpark readings and alert me if the scan locates a match."

Starscream clicked his finger servos against the armrest of the chair, watching as the computer processed its new task. The urge to destroy the thing was only over-powered by the visual reminder that the ship was a complete wreck, and that if he did he would have to waste time fixing it again like he had countless times in the past 50 stellar-cycles. Such a task was below his status, but there was no one else to fix the blasted thing so he had to do it himself.

He growled and brooded as the memory of how his victory and supposed rise as the new Decepticon Supreme Leader was tainted by the following disaster, with the Space Bridge exploding in a massive nova of energy, which led to the consummate desertion by his fellow Decepticons and nigh-obliteration of the mighty Decepticon flagship that he now called his own. The action was most likely led by that blasted excuse for a femme Blackarachnia, for there was barely enough processing power between Lugnut and Blitzwing to operate a simple electronic door lock.

And as much as he hated to admit it, the techno-organic was smarter and more cunning then virtually any other Decepticon he had met, with the possible exception of Shockwave. And that made her dangerous. Even more so, seeing as how driven the femme was, being obsessed with regaining a fully technological form at any cost. He had seen the way she had looked at the rest of them, almost like she was burning with envy for what they had that she had lost.

And he would annihilate any bot that found out, but that almost made Starscream scared of her. She was driven, she was strong, and she was intelligent. She was more ruthless than the others had given her credit for, and in his despised former leader's optics, that made her the perfect Decepticon. It was almost enough to consider an attraction to the femme, if not for the disgusting organic half of her.

The flier was pulled out of his thoughts as the monitor beeped, announcing the results of its latest scan. With another growl, Starscream turned his attention back to the screen – and stiffened in surprise as he read the results.

'_Scan successful. Faint energy readings matching files detected.'_

"Adjust course," he said quickly, "Follow the energy signature and alert me when the source is found."

Starscream's faceplates moved into a grinning position as he re-read the information displayed on the monitor and stroked his large chin in thought; the faint energy readings were just on the edge of the scanners' range. By all rights, he shouldn't have detected them at all. But he had.

Clearly, this was a sign that the power of the AllSpark was meant to be his. Starscream wasn't a strong believer in Primus, but he was capable of faith when it served his plans – and finding the AllSpark, against all odds, and using its power to cement his control over the Decepticons and Cybertron constituted a miracle in his optics. That alone should convince some of Megatron's loyalist remaining supporters to serve him.

Or he could just melt them all down to slag. He'd play that one by audio receiver.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Detroit, Alley on the downtown edge**

Blackarachnia's eight red optics narrowed in raw hatred as she glared at her former classmate.

"_Of all the mechs in the universe to find on this planet, it just _had _to be you, didn't it, Optimus?_"

She stared at the gathering before her from the protective shadows of the alley, the anger and hate filling her as she watched her former friend harass a would-be thief. All these cycles and he was still righteous as ever, thinking with the rules before thinking with his head. If he really cared he would have helped her instead of leaving her to rust in that wreck, he would have ignored the rules and saved her. But he didn't, and that showed her what he was really about.

And if he would think with his head and not with the rules, he would know that the organic was not stealing for the pleasure of it. It was painfully obvious even from here that the human child was stealing from necessity and not for thrills. The girl was a mess, dressed in dirty and torn clothes with holes worn in the fabric. The only things that looked new were the wheeled shoes on her feet, and the protective helmet.

But BlackArachnia was slightly curious as to where the girl had gotten her robotic companions. During her short time in this city she had seen many such drones fulfilling various mindless tasks, but none of them were modeled like the ones in front of her. They were almost oddly Cybertronian in design, yet there was nothing Cybertronain about them.

She turned her attention from the minor drones to the others in the group, and twitched as she heard Optimus start off on one of his preaches. She had all the time in the world to figure this out, since last time she checked he could go on for cycles.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

Sari did not even pay attention as the big bot started off on what sounded like some sort of sermon about right and wrong and everything; she was more worried about how she was going to get out of this situation. She was completely surrounded on all but one side, the only way left to go being down the dark and very unpleasant looking alley. And if that had not been deterrent enough for the eight-year old, then the memory of something larger then life skittering around in the shadows was.

She glanced up and over at her bots, hoping that they would provide some sort of help. But they only thing the security drones could do was shock people, and she doubted it would be enough to down even one of the mechs in front of her before they were taken out. The delivery bot was even more useless, all it could do was stand there and roll back and forth. She needed a way to get out of here, and soon.

Sari looked at the three other bots that were with Prime, and wondered if she could get past them. She might be able to get past the one called Bulkhead, but the idea of him falling down while she ran under him was discouraging in the least. Bumblebee or whatever he was called was too short, and his legs were too close together. If she tried she would end up flat on her back and Sari did not even want to try getting past the biker-bot. He had a look that screamed 'Irritated Ninja' to the whole world, and she was not up for risking her neck to prove it.

The last option was to try and get past Prime, who was currently preaching something (not that it was really worth listening to). He was tall, and he stood with a wide solid stance. Perfect to sneak by, if not for the fact that there was a car right behind him. Trying to get by him would get her knocked on her rear just as fast as if she tried the Bumblebee route.

All that was left was her first choice, the dark and inviting alley. She could swear she could see something glowing evilly in the alleyway, looking down at them. Why did the only choice have to be the one that was likely to get her killed?

"And furthermore," Prime continued, oblivious to the human before him suddenly tensing, "Someone as young as you shouldn't be – hey!"

The red-and-blue bot's rant was cut off as Sari suddenly spun around and ran off down the alley, the delivery bot quickly following after her. The Autobots moved to follow her as well, but were cut off by the hovering security drones, which began peppering them with bolts of high-voltage electricity. It didn't hurt them that much, but it bought Sari time to escape further down the alley. For a moment, she thought she might actually get away.

Right up until she slammed into a large black-and-gold metal leg.

Falling backwards and nearly knocking over the delivery bot as she used it to steady herself, Sari looked up and found she was staring into the bright blue optics of the motorcycle-Autobot (Prowl, if she remembered correctly).

"But… you… how?" Sari stammered, unable to form full sentences in light of the fact that one of the bots she had been running from had somehow ended up in front of her.

The robot ninja merely smirked as he folded his arms. "Let's just say that I can jump well. Now then, perhaps you would reconsider trying to run away from us like this?"

Before Sari could even think of another possible escape route, something moved in the shadows, a skittering sound accompanying it. Prowl tensed and turned in the direction of the sound – just in time for something large to leap out of the air and slam into him.

Sari watched in mild shock as Prowl flew backwards through the air and hit the wall of the alley hard. Blinking in surprise, she turned her attention to her apparent rescuer… and paled as she realized she was looking at a humongous purple-black-and-gold spider. The giant arachnid turned its attention towards her, and Sari felt her heart skip a beat in panic.

As the spider seemingly studied her, Sari returned the favor. Now that she had a chance to look at it clearly, she could see that parts of it were definitely metallic. "_This thing's part robot,_" she realized, just as the spider suddenly started speaking, making Sari nearly jump out of her skin.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" the spider snapped in a surprisingly feminine voice, "Get out of here. I'll handle these idiots."

"Th-thanks," Sari stuttered, still slightly in shock. She then ran past the spider and the apparently unconscious Prowl, her delivery bot following close behind.

Blackarachnia watched the human child disappear down the alley, and quickly fired a small homing beacon, which latched onto the back of the delivery bot. Satisfied that she would be able to track the organic down and get some answers later, the techno-organic Decepticon turned her attention back to the remaining Autobots, who had just taken out the last of the irritating security drones.

Focusing on Optimus, she narrowed all eight of her optics in raw hatred. She then bared her fangs in the equivalent of a grim smile, and hissed out two words.

"Payback time."

_**AN: This was going to be a longer chapter, but my Muses have left me to rot for now. So major thanks to Zim's for helping with a lot of this chapter. But anyways, hope you enjoy and R/R! Because Reviews make me happy. :)**_


	8. Chapter 8

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: _**And here is Chapter 8, fresh and ready for you to read after the hard work of both myself and my Beta. I would hope you enjoy this latest Chapter, and leave lots of reviews. This is also our longest Chapter yet, and hopfully they keep getting longer. Signing out, Nocturne no Kitsune.**_

**Chapter 8: Changing Styles and a unpleasant wake-up call**

**Detroit, Alley on the downtown edge**

Sari had run, and was still running, through the back alley maze like she had been told to. Not that she was normally one to do as complete strangers told her to, but when they happen to be giant half-robot talking spiders that save you from giant transforming robots, that tends to change one's priorities.

She could hear the skates of her delivery bot racing behind her, and at some point a few moments ago she had heard something like fireworks going off somewhere down the alley behind her. It had not taken any great length of time or effort of thought to know her security drones had been wasted and that had been the sound of them being trashed.

As she raced through the dark alley, and towards her home, she could now hear the sound of fighting coming from behind her. She couldn't help but wonder how her arachnid savior was doing, and if she was all right. Normally she would have forgotten about it, but something about the spider interested her...

**LINEBREAK/Scene change**

Prime brought his rocket axe down on the last of the security drones, cleanly slicing it in half. As the two sparking pieces of the Earth bot fell to the ground, the Cybertronian quickly checked on the rest of his team. Bulkhead was attempting to pry his wreaking ball out of a wall, where it had ended up after he had smashed several of the security drones into it, while Bumblebee was using one of his stabilizing servos to gently prod the remains of one of the drones he had blasted apart. Prowl had apparently disappeared.

"Anyone see where Prowl went?" the red-and-blue mech asked.

"I think he went after the organic, Boss-Bot," Bulkhead said as he finally managed to pull his wreaking ball loose, "Should we go help him?"

"What, are you kidding?" Bumblebee asked, looking up from the remains of the drone, "Mr. 'I Work Alone' has probably already caught that kid and turned her over to the police. I say we call it a night and head back to the ship."

Before Prime could say anything in response to that, _something_ shot out of the nearby alley, latched onto his axe, and pulled it out of his hand. With a startled gasp, Prime spun around – and felt his spark stop in a combination of fear and shock.

A massive spider hung in the air, its eight legs braced against the walls of the alley and his axe held in a strand of webbing emanating from the creature's mouth. Bumblebee and Bulkhead let out their own sounds of amazement/fear/shock, but Prime barely heard them. Old memories, ones better left forgotten, were flying before his optics.

_A forbidden planet… an abandoned Decepticon ship… giant organics… explosions… Elita…_

Prime was pulled back to the present when the spider suddenly threw the axe aside and lunged at him. Still too shocked to react properly, he was knocked to the ground, but managed to grab the spider's head before its fangs could sink into his head. The spider thrashed in his grip, attempting to break free, but he kept his hold on it.

"Hey! Back off!"

Bulkhead's wrecking ball and a blast from Bumblebee's stingers hit the spider in its side, sending it flying off of Prime and across the street. "You okay Boss-Bot?" Bulkhead asked, as he helped Prime up and Bumblebee walked over to the stunned spider, his stingers still pointed at it.

"I'm fine," Prime said quickly, his voice wavering slightly.

Bulkhead raised an optic ridge, but then the spider started moving again, and all three bots turned their total attention back to the giant organic. Bumblebee was about to shock it again, when it jumped to its feet and did something none of the Autobots expected – it transformed.

Right before their optics, the spider changed shape into a definitely female Cybertronian. And a highly attractive one, at that. In fact, all three bots would have called her beautiful, if not for the organic parts marring her otherwise perfect, curvy body. Four red optics glared at them from behind a black-and-gold helmet, while her lips pulled back in a sneer, revealing _very_ sharp fangs.

"Who are you?" Bumblebee, the first to recover from his shock, asked.

"_What_ are you?" Bulkhead added.

"What's wrong, boys?" she asked, in a voice that was so strangely familiar that it sent chills through Prime's processor, "Never seen a femme before?" Laughing a little, the female walked towards Bumblebee slowly, her hips swaying slightly. The yellow mech swallowed nervously and backed up.

"O-Okay, hold it right there," he stammered, pointing his stingers at the femme in what he hoped was a threatening manner. This merely got another laugh from the spider-transformer.

"Nice stingers," she said casually, "Mind if I borrow them for awhile?"

Bumblebee blinked. "Say what?"

Instead of answering, the spider merely smirked - and then suddenly slammed the two spider legs sticking out of her shoulders right into Bumblebee's chassis.

"Bumblebee!" Prime and Bulkhead shouted simultaneously, as their short friend collapsed to the ground in stasis lock, while the spider-bot retracted her legs and laughed again.

"Okay, that's it!" Bulkhead roared, running forward and swinging his wrecking ball. The femme merely sidestepped, allowing the ball to slam into the ground. Before the green mech could pull it free, the spider-bot jumped onto it, and used it as a springboard to launch herself at Bulkhead. Just before she hit him, she extended her arms… and perfect copies of Bumblebee's stingers appeared on her wrists.

"What the?" was all Bulkhead got out before a blast of energy hit him directly in the face. He shouted in pain and staggered back, and then one of the femme's high-heeled feet hit him in the jaw.

Bulkhead fell backwards, hitting the ground hard and going into stasis lock. The spider-bot landed in a crouch, and then had to dodge again as Prime, who had retrieved his axe, swung it at her.

The Autobot leader went into a series of vicious swings, but the femme neatly dodged each one. Seeing that this wasn't working, Prime quickly switched strategies. Still holding onto the axe with one hand, he swung it wide, forcing her to move to the side – and right into the path of his free fist, which he aimed right at her head.

She caught it, with barely a glance in its direction.

As Prime gaped, the femme laughed again. "Textbook Autobot Academy fighting maneuvers," she said with a smirk, before slamming the palm of her other hand into Prime's chin so hard it knocked him back and into the side of the building behind them, the axe once again falling from his grasp. As his vision cleared from the pain, he saw that the spider-bot was still standing in the same place, hands on her hips and shaking her head in apparent disapproval. "You never did learn to think outside the box, did you, Optimus?"

Prime froze.

"How do you know my name?" he asked slowly, which only earned yet another mocking laugh from the femme. Prime glared, tightening his hand servos into fists.

"Who _are_ you?!" he practically shouted.

The smirk on the spider-transformer's face faded, and was replaced with a glare that reminded Prime of a human expression he'd heard a short while ago – _if looks could kill, he'd be dead right now._

"The name's Blackarachnia these days," she hissed, "But as for who I _used_ to be… I'm surprised you haven't figured that out yet."

Prime merely blinked in confusion, but before he could ask what she meant, she continued, "And unfortunately, I don't have time to spell it out for you. I have more important matters to attend to, so why don't we just end this, hmm?"

With that, Blackarachnia lunged at him, claws bared. Prime raised his arms to protect himself, but it soon became a moot point, as something suddenly flew through the air and hit her in the side.

"Gah!" Blackarachnia screamed in pain, collapsing to the ground and clutching her side in pain. As she pulled out the object, covered in a mix of oil, energon, and organic fluids, Prime got a good look and realized what it was – one of Prowl's ninja stars.

Prime and Blackarachnia turned towards the alley, and found the ninja-bot standing there, another star in his hand. "Next time you knock someone out," he said calmly, "might I suggest you restrain them?"

"Slag!" Blackarachnia cursed, staggering to her feet and glaring at Prowl. She turned her attention to Prime, and the glare intensified. "This is _not_ over, Optimus. Not by a long shot."

She then lifted her arms and fired her copied stingers. The blast hit the ground between her and the two Autobots, sending up a huge cloud of dust and smoke. By the time it cleared, Blackarachnia had disappeared.

As the two Autobots waved the remaining dust out of the air, Prowl turned to Prime and raised an optic ridge. "So, who was that, anyway?" he asked.

"I'm… not entirely sure," Prime muttered, before composing himself and saying, "But we'll worry about that later. Right now, let's get Bumblebee and Bulkhead back to the ship and have Ratchet look them over."

Prowl nodded and walked over to help up Bulkhead, who was starting to come to. As he picked up Bumblebee, Prime couldn't help but replay the fight and the conversation over in his processor.

"_Who was that femme? And why does she seem so familiar?_"

**LINEBREAK/Scene change**

**Sari's Factory, A Short Time Later**

Sari gave a small sigh as she plopped herself down onto her father's chair, and took a moment to examine her new outfit. Although she still didn't like the idea of dressing like a Goth, it was nice to once again wear clothes that were clean and didn't have holes in them.

The black combat boots she had picked out fit perfectly, and went all the way up to the bottom of her knee joint. The black-and-blue stripped stockings were not too loose or too tight, and the material was soft and comfortable. The black double-layer skirt she had chosen from the ones stolen was fairly long and fell to a few inches above her knees for the inner layer, but the layer on the outside fell down and around her legs, leaving it open in the front and longer in the back and gave it a dramatic look when it flared out as she walked. A simple black T-shirt with a broken gear pattern across the front was covered with an open half-length leather jacket with white fur lining on the edges and cuffs, with extra long sleeves that hid her hands just inside.

She really had not liked the long sleeves at first, since they kept getting in the way. She had almost decided to cut them off and be rid of them, but the fur lining had given her enough pause to discover a small surprise within. In a triangle formation on the inside of the cuff and right next to her hands were a set of three pockets in each sleeve, and each pocket was large enough to fit her tools and sown in such a way that they would not fall out if she waved her arms the wrong way. After that she had fallen in love with her new jacket, and filled the pockets with her stun gun and hacking tool as well as a few others and allowed her to free up space in her backpack.

She stood up from the chair and walked over to a mirror next to the disembodied robot head that stood in the back of the room, and examined her other changes in wardrobe. Her long hair was now done up and out of her eyes with a silver skull pendant that looked like one of the robots from the old "Terminator" movies, and it even had a large set of lab-made rubies set in the eye sockets for that extra effect. In the back she had pulled out her two ponytails into a single long one, and kept it in order with a red and black butterfly tie.

Sari idly played with the butterfly tie as she looked in the mirror, remembering when she had gotten it from her father for a birthday gift. The wings were encrusted with all sorts of jewels, and the purple eyes were made out of amethyst. She loved it, but she had rarely found a reason to wear it until now. It had just felt right, to put it on now.

Finished playing with the tie and almost done making sure she did not look like a clown, she remembered her key. She turned around and rushed over to where her pile of old clothes was and grabbed it off the top where she had put it while she changed, and slipped it around her neck and let the heavy metal bounce on her chest for a moment before settling. With the comfortable weight of it around her neck again, she walked over and looked in the mirror one more time, and fiddled with her dark red hair making sure it was still in place. As she did, she took the time to examine herself as well, not just her clothes.

She had always wondered where she had gotten her distinctive red hair and eyes; she had never seen anyone with her exact coloration before. She defiantly had her father's dark complexion, maybe a bit lighter. But the hair and eyes, without a doubt, had to have come from her mysterious mother.

Not even the few workers in her father's company she had met who were of Irish heritage had ever seen hair the color of hers, and her eyes… The bright, focused pools of dried-blood red gave the young girl the creeps at times. There had been a few times she had gotten mad at some employee of her father's and glared with all her might, and a lot of the time she could remember where they had recoiled visibly. She even remembered the looks on their faces; the look of almost extreme fear had scared her, considering they were afraid of _her_ at the moment.

She had even heard a few employees who had met her glare swear up and down to their fellow workers that her eyes had even glowed, as impossible as it was. They had not known she had been listening in, and she had not made it known.

She was knocked out of her thoughts and gagged on her next breath as she was violently and suddenly pulled to one side.

When she managed to stop gagging and hold her ground, she found it was her key that was attempting to choke her to death as it wrestled against its strap in a desperate attempt to reach the large disembodied head that was the largest of the things to come from her father's labs. She pulled valiantly as she tried to get the key under control, and find a way to get it to stop acting weird.

But it was not to be, as with a sudden surge the key rushed forward and pulled Sari along the floor with it before it plugged itself into a previously hidden panel on the robot's helm. With a flash of light and a burst of energy that sparked and twisted around the robotic cranium like lightning, the whirr of long dead machinery and electrical devices could be heard and a hostile red glow started to fill the room as the optics came online.

Just as Sari managed to get up and dust herself off, the key stopped. It fell out of its resting place and thumped on her chest, and the eight-year old just stared at it before she almost literally jumped out of her skin as a loud and commanding voice rang out. It was edged with an almost palpable tone of rage and indignation, and Sari did what anyone would have done - she leapt away and hid behind a nearby stack of crates as the furious red optics began to search the room and the disembodied robot started on what sounded like a rant of massive proportions.

**LINEBREAK/Scene change**

**Downtown edge – Skyscraper**

Blackarachnia growled as she applied the painful nanite spray to the wound on her side, and let out a barely audible hiss as the stinging sensation of the modified medical nanites as they worked their wonders on the fusion of metal and organic substance that she called her skin. After a moment the stinging stopped and the wound was sealed and healed, and she stood to look down at the city from the skyscraper she had taken to hiding on top of after her fight with Optimus and his team. She idly rubbed the area around the wound and made sure that the surface was not marred or warped, and then chuckled sarcastically to herself.

"Hmph. My own best doctor, ain't I? Not like anyone else understands how I work. Now with that out of the way, time to track down that organic. I need to know more about this place, and who better then a resident? And it's not like I can't satisfy my own curiosity while I'm at it, can I?"

The arachnid Decepticon transformed into her organic altmode, leapt off the building, and descended at a dangerous pace towards street level. At the last possible moment before she would have gone too far and hit the pavement, she shot out a thick thread of her unique spider silk that attached to a building nearby and swung down the rest of the way safely. She had no worries about the thread breaking, or anything else happening of that type. The thread was a combination of an incredibly strong monofilament wire and an extremely durable organic composite. There was very little chance that it could break so easily.

Once down on ground level and situated on top of a small two-story building, she brought up her tracking program on her HUD and locked on to the tracer she had planted during the human girl's escape. Once she had a direction to go in, she started to leap from building to building, and took the dark and shadowy back alleys when she had to.

She moved quickly, not wanting to risk the signal moving and losing it in the electronic mish-mash that was the city's communication network. She could not understand how anything worked here when the local DataNet was such a mess. There was so much interference leaking into the surroundings that she had turned off her own comm. system until she could take the time to change the settings to something that would block out the excess electronic white-noise. What did work was full of so much corrupted data that she had turned up the settings on her own firewalls just to be sure she did not catch anything unpleasant.

Blackarachnia was soon out of the downtown edge and was working her way through the outer city fringe to where the signal was sitting peacefully on her HUD, and soon came up to what was most likely what she was looking for. As she stared at the building before her, she could not help but admire that while the girl was apparently down on her luck, she had the smarts to choose someplace decent to hide in.

Before her a sprawling factory took up a large patch of land, and looked rather intimidating.

Not that it bothered her at all, if anything it looked welcoming. It would be a perfect place to set up shop after she was finished with the girl, at least until she found something better. What would happen to the organic femme she would decide after she got some answers. But for now, she had to get inside the factory before any of that happened.

She jumped down and into what was probably a parking lot before it had been over run by vegetation and transformed back into what was still mockingly called her "robot mode" and snuck up to what appeared to be the largest entrance, in the form of a large garage door. Blackarachnia carefully kneeled down, slipped a nimble servo under the edge and quietly lifted it up, and was pleased to find that it did not make any noise. She had half expected it to make some sort of screeching or grinding noise from how rusty it was, but apparently someone kept it well oiled for constant and quick use.

She slipped inside and let the door down slowly, and after it was closed without a sound she turned around and raised an appreciative optic ridge at her surroundings. Robots of every shape and size lined the walls on massive storage racks that were scattered throughout the large room. A few assembly lines and robotic work arms could be seen throughout the clutter. She had apparently found the source of the human's robotic companions, and it looked like there were plenty to spare.

She examined one rack in particular and found a small plate with writing on it. It was easy for her to understand the simplistic human language, and figure out what it said. In raised bold writing, it read:

"_Retired Sumdac Systems robots. Storage facility 5 of 7. Domestic and private robots__."_

She looked around at the many thousands of robots, and thought to herself.

"_Retired hmm? No wonder I have not seen these models around the city, no one uses them anymore. No one but that organic that is. Speaking of which, where is she?"_

Looking around the large room, there was no clue or hint as to the presence of the human she had met and saved earlier. Or maybe there was. Tucked away in a particularly large section of clear space was a makeshift set of quarters. What could be assumed to be a bunk of sorts lay on the floor, while a large metal bin full of smoldering ashes was nearby and hinted at a fire for warmth having been going until awhile ago. There were piles of various items laying around in a half organized way, with makeshift selves with a set of small hooks and hangers nearby. Also nearby was the delivery bot that she had planted the tracker on.

Walking over and making sure not to step on anything and reveal herself if the human was nearby, she knelt down and examined the bot. It was currently in a state of recharge, and would most likely not be getting up anytime soon. She used a slim servo to tilt the bot forward, and easily retrieved the tracer that had stuck itself to the simple machine's back and led her here.

Standing up, she put the tracer away and looked around for anything else and spotted a nearby hallway that lead further into the factory. It was easily tall enough for her to walk though without bumping her head against anything, and with the stealthy ease that came naturally to her she walked down into the dark hall.

She had only been walking for a short while, when she started to hear something from up ahead. If she didn't know better, she could swear that someone was very angry, and being very loud about it. It could not be the human girl, there was no way she had the lung capacity for it. Besides, the voice was distinctly male, or mech, depending how you looked at it. She carefully snuck up to where she heard the sound, and found a heavy metal door blocking her way. Not wanting to risk being discovered, she knelt down and placed an attentive audio against the metal and listened…

**A/N**: _**And like we said, hope you enjoyed this so far. R/R, and have a nice day.**_


	9. Chapter 9

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachina and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: _And greetings once again from myself and my Beta to you, the reader. We are proud to present the latest Chapter of MBSTS to you for you reading pleasure after many many hours of work. We hope you enjoy this chapter, and the others that will follow._

**Chapter 9: Getting your head into the game**

**Sari's Factory, The Computer Room**

The process had been almost painfully slow at first, but it accelerated in a short enough time. Megatron found himself looking around what appeared to be a decrepit lab, or perhaps a storage space of some sort. But that was all washed away as the memories of his humiliating defeat at the hands of some unimportant Autobot _whelp_and his motley crew of glitches brought forth a wave of rage in the Decepticon lord's mind.

Megatron's already glowing ruby optics flared, filling the room with a hostile glow as a metallic snarl escaped him along with a few choice words.

"When I get my hands on that pitiful Autobot and his lackeys, I will show him the end result of his defiance! The AllSpark was _mine, _and he dare stand in my way?!?"

This continued onward for a short time, before he realized something. He was looking at the room from floor level, yet at floor level everything in the room was sized for something much smaller then the standard Cybertronain, or even a Minibot. This was abnormal. If everything were normal, then he would be looking down at the room from a higher perspective, even if he were in a sitting position.

He cast his gaze downwards and to the floor beneath him, expecting to see that he was on some sort of lift that led to a lower floor. Nothing but a solid platform met his gaze, with a solid floor made out of some sort of smoothed stone beneath it.

He looked forward again, hoping to find some sort of clue to what in the Pit was happening, only to meet his own reflection in the form of a powered down monitor screen. A roar of impotent rage and realization escaped him.

Staring back at him was the image of a disembodied head, a shadow of his former imposing continence. Little remained; mechanisms were exposed, and much of his facial plates had been torn away leaving little to hide the workings underneath.

"What is this?! What is going on here?! I demand answers! Why am I in this unacceptable operational status?!"

Megatron's optics danced around the room, looking for something or someone to explain what was happening, and as he did he started to clearly remember what had happened near the end of the fight with the captain of the Autobot ship that had carried the AllSpark. He had been careless, and in a moment of opportunity the Autobot had thought to push him through the airlock as they made orbital entry on an alien world.

The phantom sensation of the burning pain raging throughout his frame was purged as another memory came up from his mind - the image of the AllSpark itself being pulled from the ship and into the atmosphere was the last thing he could remember before fading into darkness. After that there was only the feeling of incredible pain throughout his sensory net, and then absolutely nothing.

He looked at his reflection again, hoping to find something else that would hint at what had become of him after that. He was met with nothing, but he did find something that could hint at the next source of answers.

While he could not see it from his current position, in the reflective blackness of the monitor he could clearly see a small form huddling behind a stack of crates in fear. Obviously the figure was trying to hide from him and not draw any attention, and if not for the mirror-like screen it would have been successful. He growled out, and commanded that the figure reveal itself.

"You there! Show yourself or I swear by the Pits that I will make you suffer, my operational status be slagged! Now come out where I can see you!"

Sari almost jumped, and was overfilled with panic. What could she do? She was trapped in a room with a raging robot head that was going to try and kill her if she didn't show herself. But then again, could it? It was just a head, and unless it could fire laser beams or something from its eyes all it could do was sit there and rage.

But then again she was in a room filled with hundreds of wireless controlled tools, created by her father so he could control his lab from his computer. If it figured that out, then sooner or later it was bound to find something that it could use to fulfill its threat on her life.

She cursed at herself for being such a self-conscious girl and locking the heavy sliding door behind her when she entered and started changing. By the time she got over to the door and unlocked it, the raging head would probably do whatever it was planning to do to carry out its threat.

With a fearful heart, Sari stepped out from her hiding place and faced her formerly silent companion. She honestly liked it better when it had been a silent piece of machinery that she could confess her heart too…

The ridge over Megatron's right optic – the one still covered with the remains of his faceplate – raised in slight confusion as he took in the sight of the figure trembling before him. It was clearly organic (Blackarachnia had served him long enough for him to recognize one), as well as rather young and apparently female. Looking into her red optics – or whatever organics called them – Megatron saw fear shining in them. That actually lifted his mood somewhat, knowing that despite his damaged state, he was still capable of filling others with terror.

"Who are you?" he demanded, narrowing his optics at the organic.

The child swallowed nervously, before stammering out, "I'm S-Sari…"

"I didn't ask for your apologies. I asked for your name."

Sari frowned slightly as she glared at the disembodied head; her fear being temporarily replaced by the annoyance she always got whenever someone first heard her name and misunderstood it. Seriously, what had her father been thinking when he named her?

"No, I mean, my _name _is Sari."

The optic ridge went up again, but then came back down as the robot continued his questioning.

"Where am I? And where is the rest of my body? Speak!"

Sari's attitude quickly went back to frightened as the cold red optics bored into her, and she struggled for a moment before she found her voice again. "You're in my home. It's an abandoned factory in Detroit."

At the robot's blank stare, Sari continued. "Uh, that's a city, here on Earth… I'm guessing you're not from this planet, since you mentioned the Autobots, and I know they're aliens, so…"

"_What?!_" the head roared again so loudly Sari had to cover her ears, "Those Autobot weaklings are _here?!_"

After Sari's ears had stopped ringing and she was able to hear again, she answered again in a soft tone to try and avoid angering the livid piece of machinery before her.

"Y-yes, they are. They've been here for almost fifty years or so if what they told everyone is right, but they only woke up from some sort of hibernation or stasis or whatever they called it a few weeks ago. They fought some monster and afterwards they started peaceful talks with the city."

Megatron glared at the soft speaking female and growled. The fact that the Autobots apparently shared a city with him was not exactly the sort of information he had wanted to hear; this put him at risk of being discovered while he was in such a state of disrepair. He needed more answers, and so far the only source was this organic female.

"Tell me, exactly what do you know of the Autobots' intentions on this world? And speak up, I have neither time or patience to deal with you."

Sari flinched somewhat at the harsh tone, but for the moment did as she was told to. It was not like she had a lot of choice in the manner anyways.

"I-I don't know, they haven't exactly told the public what they want yet. All that anyone knows at the moment is that they want to fix their ship which is at the bottom of the lake and that they're looking for something they lost when they crashed here. O-other then that they aren't being open to anyone but the city officials."

Megatron leveled a hard and threatening glare at the girl, while his optics glowed like twin pits of ruby fire. His voice was little more then a low grind at this point.

"Are you absolutely sure about that? If you are holding anything back and I find out about it organic...."

Sari got the point, and started shaking her head violently.

"Alright then organic. Tell me where exactly I am then. You told me I am in your home, an abandoned factory structure. Explain more about it, and how exactly I got here."

Sari nodded nervously and explained.

"W-well, like I said, you're in my home. It's a great big old robot factory that my father used to own; he had gotten it in a business merger but never really paid any attention to it. My father was the head of a large corporation that designed and built robots, and then sold them across the world. But after awhile, the company went bad and fell apart. I was left pretty much homeless, and all of my father's robots and everything were recalled and retired from active service. After that everything ended up in warehouses or factories like this one. Including you. You were found in my father's private lab and everyone just assumed that you were another one of his projects that he never finished."

Sari continued her story and explained everything to the robot head that had yet to identify itself to her. Although, she was pretty sure from the way it acted that it was a Transformer like the Autobots. But it also acted like it hated the Autobots. Sari wondered what exactly she was getting herself into.

Both Sari and Megatron were still unaware of the presence of Blackarachnia on the other side of the heavy door to the room. Megatron was normally able to pinpoint the location of his officers due to a proximity sensor that they all carried, but he was still recovering and had yet to regain that function. Blackarachnia, on the other hand, was almost instantly able to recognize the voice coming from the other side of the door, and realize who was in the room.

"_So, Megatron's still alive, is he?_" she mused, "_Hmm, can't wait to see the look on Starscream's face when he finds out about this._" She chuckled slightly, but then paused as another thought occurred to her. "_This would explain why all those bots seem so Cybertronian in design – the girl's father must have reverse-engineered the technology from Megatron's remains. But if he's been in storage on this planet for the last fifty stellar-cycles, why is he suddenly back online?_"

The techno-organic Decepticon tuned back into the conversation, just as Megatron asked a similar question himself.

"Those accursed Autobots destroyed my body and left me to rust on this rock," he growled, "And because of them, I have been locked away, offline and nearly destroyed, for fifty stellar-cycles." At this point, Megatron narrowed his optics and glared at Sari, who took an instinctive step back. "So, answer me this organic: how is it you and I are having this conversation?"

"I-I'm not really sure," she said quickly, "I just happened to be in here, then my key started pulling me towards you, and -"

"What key?"

Nervously, Sari reached down and held up the key, which had gone unnoticed by the head this whole time. While the red optics focused on the small metal object, Sari quickly continued. "Like I said, it just started pulling me towards you, then it plugged itself into you, and the next thing I know you're talking." She paused, before muttering, "I knew this thing could control machines, but I didn't know that it could bring 'em back from the dead, too…"

"Where did you acquire this… item?" the head asked, a bit more softly than it had its previous questions. Although, there was still a dangerous tone to its voice, which Sari took to mean that the previous threat of "Answer My Questions Or I'll Kill You" still stood.

Bearing that in mind, she answered as honestly as she could. "Well, it used to be this old keycard that I carried around. But then it got changed into this when it was exposed to this weird crystal thing in some metal box I found -"

Once again Sari was cut off by the head, which yelled out in a mixture of triumph and disbelief.

"The AllSpark! You actually found the AllSpark?! Ha, ha, ha! Marvelous! Bring it to me at once!"

"…What?" Sari asked, slightly stunned by the head's sudden mood change.

"Bring the AllSpark to me _NOW!!!_" the head roared, the room shaking from the volume of the command. Sari jumped, and then quickly ran towards the door to the room. As she fumbled with the lock, she could swear she could hear something moving on the other side of the door – but at the moment, she was more worried with what was on _inside_the room, not what might be outside it.

As soon as she got the door open, she ran out of the room and headed towards the containment chamber in the main area of the factory, where she had stored the box she had found by the lake. Had she been moving a little slower, or had bothered to look up during this mad dash, she might have noticed that the giant spider which had saved her from the Autobots was currently clinging to the ceiling by a hastily made web.

Blackarachnia watched as the organic quickly made her way to some sort of containment chamber, opened it, and entered it. After a few moments, she re-appeared, dragging out a trolley with a metal box on it. Blackarachnia felt her spark jump into her throat at the sight.

"_The AllSpark… finally, the one thing capable of ridding me of this accursed organic form._"

She smirked as she heard Megatron bellow from within the room, demanding that the child hurry up and bring the AllSpark to him. Apparently, all those stellar-cycles of inactivity had done nothing to help his patience.

A few minutes later, Sari managed to drag the AllSpark – _what kind of stupid name is that, anyway? _– into the computer room, and place it directly in front of the head.

"Excellent," the disembodied robot said, "Now open it, and expose me to the AllSpark's healing energies. Once again, the universe shall tremble before Megatron, Supreme Leader of the Decepticons, and rightful ruler of Cybertron!"

Megatron closed his optics in anticipation, but when nothing happened, he opened them again and glared at Sari. The poor girl was cowering behind the AllSpark, sweating nervously as she looked up at him.

"What are you waiting for?" he snapped, "Open it!"

"Y-Yeah, about that," she said softly, "I, uh, kinda can't."

"_WHAT?!?!?!_"

Sari squeaked and hid behind the Allspark again, not exactly wanting to be in the line of fire for whatever was going to happen. Megatron on the other hand raged, his optics glowing brighter then ever and his voice a malevolent roar.

"And _why_ can't you open the AllSpark?!"

Sari peeked out from her hiding place, looking fearful.

"I-it's j-j-just that, I can't. The last time it opened by itself and then it zapped my card into the key. I've tried to open it since then, but nothing works. It just sits there and looks weird, believe me!"

Megatron growled, but many millennia of experience with Starscream had given him a sense of sorts of when someone was trying to lie to him. And the problem was that the organic was not lying to him. That left him without a way to restore himself, unless they rebuilt a body from nothing. Either that or try and find a way to open the AllSpark and allow it to repair him, but from what he had been told the AllSpark was apparently locked up tight and was not going to open up any time soon.

He was disrupted from this thoughts and the cowering Sari when he felt something click in the back of his mind and he received a blurry systems update on his HUD, declaring that he had regained some of his surviving systems. They had apparently been repairing themselves since his awakening and had just finished.

Almost immediately after that came an update on the proximity sensors that were tuned towards his officers. Apparently one of them was directly outside the room he was in. And the I.D. code embedded into the signature he was picking up identified the officer as Blackarachnia, his more scientific follower unlike the brutes Blitzwing and Lugnut or the ever-scheming Starscream.

Not that he was pleased about discovering that someone knew that he was here and in a weakened state; if anything, he would have wished to keep his status a secret until he could insure his recovery and regain some of his more loyal servants. But it was too late for that.

He deemed to deal with her after he had finished with the organic, and turned his attention to the girl for just a moment, and spoke in a low growl.

"Stop whimpering and silence yourself! Since you cannot open the AllSpark, we will simply have to find a different purpose for you. Until then, be quite. We have company, and I would suggest you keep out of the way if you would wish to retain your functioning status for a long time to come."

Sari stared at the now suddenly calmer head that had identified itself as Megatron a short time ago. Company? What company? The factory was empty besides herself and her new houseguest, and when she had gone out to get the AllSpark or whatever it was called there had been nobody then as well. There was also the fact that it was rather hard to move around the factory and not make noise unless you were careful, and she would have heard if someone was sneaking about.

She decided to ignore that fact for now and just trust in what this Megatron bot said, since he was the giant robot head with who-knows what stuff inside for sensors or anything. She quietly nodded, and then dragged the AllSpark off to the side and took a seat in her father's chair to watch what happened.

Megatron watched as the organic seemed to stop and think for a moment, before rushing and putting the AllSpark off to the side. Afterwords, she took a seat nearby and seemed to watch for whatever he was going to do about their supposed company. Not bothering to comment on it, he turned his ruby gaze to the heavy metal door and called out, his voice rough and demanding.

"Blackarachnia, I can tell you're out there. I would suggest you enter and explain yourself, and why you seem to have taken to hiding from your lord instead of presenting yourself as you should."

Sari stared in confusion between Megatron and the door, then nearly jumped as the door was pulled open. Her shock increased when she saw what was now coming into the room – a tall, female black-and-purple robot, wearing a black-and-gold helmet. But Sari barely noticed these details, as she was distracted by the rather spider-like legs sticking out of the bot's back, and the bug-like shell draped behind her normal legs. As Sari tried to process the odd mixture of machine and spider before her, part of her was also trying to figure out why the heck she looked so familiar.

The spider-like robot now identified as Blackarachnia looked Megatron up and down, before she finally smirked and said, "Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This almost makes me wish Starscream were here – the expression on his face would probably be pretty priceless."

Megatron's optics flashed in anger at his minion's disrespectful tone. Before he could retort, however, Sari let out a gasp and jumped up. "I know that voice!" she shouted, apparently not remembering or caring that Megatron had told her to stay quiet, "You're that spider that saved me from the Autobots!"

Blackarachnia turned to look at the human, still smirking. "Clever girl," she said, "But you should probably take Megatron's advice and stay out of this until you're spoken to." With that said, she then turned back to Megatron, who was giving her an inquisitive look.

"You've encountered the Autobots?" he asked.

"Yeah, I have – and I've got to say, if they really did do this to you, you must be losing your touch. The whole team's pathetic; the only reason I didn't finish them off was because one of them got in a lucky shot."

A bolt of energy crackled around Megatron's head as he let out an angry growl. "Do _not_ test my patience, half-breed. Now tell me, why has it taken fifty stellar-cycles for one of my soldiers to locate me?"

"Probably because I wasn't looking for you. I was looking for _that_."

A purple claw gestured towards the metal container in the corner of the room. "With the power of the AllSpark, I'll be able to _finally_ get rid of this_disgusting_ half of my body. Maybe I'll let you have it after that."

The room went red as the glow of Megatron's optics grew until it was practically blinding. "How _dare _you?!" he snarled, "The AllSpark is _mine!_ You do not have the willpower to use it, or to even open its container! Only I do!"

"Yeah, well it doesn't look like you're in much of a position to use it yourself," Blackarachnia said, a sneer forming on her face, "Last time I checked, you need servos to open things."

The glow from the optics dimmed as Megatron narrowed them at his Science Officer. "Then it would appear we are at an impasse. You don't have the strength to open the AllSpark's container, while I do not have the body to even try. So what do you propose we do about this?"

While the two alien machines glared at each other, Sari sat in the chair thinking. She cast a glance at the AllSpark. "_Wow, they both really want that thing. Is it really that powerful?_" She then glanced down at the key hanging around her neck as she slowly ran her fingers around it. "_Then again, look what it did to my key. It was just a keycard, now it's bringing robot heads back to life and creating giant bugs._"

That thought suddenly brought back memories of the night the Autobots had first appeared. _The giant cockroach… the police getting thrashed… Powell…_

Sari suddenly gripped the key so tight that it cut into her palm. With all the recent excitement, she had almost forgotten about her hatred for that man. "_No matter what it takes, I swear I'll make him pay for what he did to me._"

A thought hit her just then, and she looked back down at the key. She then looked out the door at her factory full of robots and machines designed to build them. And then she looked back at Megatron and Blackarachnia, who had gone back to their argument.

"_No matter what it takes…_"

"If you expect me to waste my time building you a new body from scrap when I could be finding a way to pry open the AllSpark, then you're processor must have gotten slagged," Blackarachnia snarled, baring her fangs.

"And if you think I'm going to just sit by and let you take what is rightfully mine, then you're an even greater fool than Starscream." Megatron paused, then added, "And _that_ is saying something."

Blackarachnia hissed, but before she could respond to that, there was the sound of someone clearing their throat. The two Decepticons turned their attention to the side of the room, where Sari was smiling sheepishly at them, a strange glint in her eyes.

"Um, I know I'm not supposed to interrupt, but I think I know a way we can all get what we want…"

**A/N2**_: And there is the end of this chapter. Hope you enjoyed, and plz remember to R/R._


	10. Chapter 10

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachina and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: _And another Chapter, as well as a few notices and other things. First thing, I would like everyone to give a hand to My Beta and now Co-auther. If not for Zim's help and creativity these last few chapters would have been nowhere as good as they are now. After that, is the reminder that characters are a bit different here in this fic for the sake of the fic. Fanzone is just a example. Lastly, i would like you to take the time and follow the links in my Profile to some Artwork done for the Fic by a friend. They did a very good job. Now i think that is everything, so i would like everyone to R/R and enjoy the chapter._

**Chapter 10: Sign on the dotted line**

**Sari's Factory, The Computer Room**

Sari was overcome by nervousness when both bots glared at her, but pressed onwards with her idea. If she could succeed in getting them to listen to her and her idea, then revenge on Powell would be a lot easier. Looking over at her rescuer now known as Blackarachnia, she started, thankful for the times she had listened in to her father and Powell talk about business. It gave her the know how to deal with this situation, and the lessons from her Tutor-bot made sure she did not sound like an idiot while she talked.

"Alright, you have a problem with your body and want to fix it. You want the AllSpark to do it, since it apparently can do it instantly and without a lot of effort. But the problem is that you can't open the box, just like me."

Sari looked over at Megatron, not stopping for fear of losing what little confidence she had.

"And you want to have a body period, since the Autobots trashed the other one when you fought them for whatever reason. You need the AllSpark to do that, since building a new body from scrap would take forever to do. You can open the AllSpark unlike the two of us, but you don't have a body to do so. You also don't want to let the AllSpark-thing outta your sight, so Blackarachnia taking it for whatever she wants to do with it is out of the question. That, and she can't open it anyways, right?"

She almost withered under the forceful looks they both leveled at her, but the silence was what she needed to confirm it. She _was _right and that was the problem. Now she just needed to get them to listen to her idea. She continued, a fiery expression working its way on her face and a defiant tone to her voice.

"Now I was told to keep quite, but can I suggest a few things to make us all happy? Megatron, maybe I forgot to mention it or something, but you're in a factory. One designed to build robots. LOTS of robots. That also happens to be filled to bursting with almost every type of robot someone can think of, and yet it never occurred to you? Does maybe the term _spare parts _ring a bell? We don't need to build a body from scratch; we can just salvage the bots already here and use the factory lines to rebuild them into parts for you. And whatever we don't have, we can go out and find."

She jerked a thumb at the spidery femme in front of her.

"And Blackarachnia here seems to be someone who knows a lot about however you guys work, so she can make sure that the parts made will work right, and she would also know what special parts are needed."

She looked at both bots, a grin on her face as she moved in for the proverbial kill.

Blackarachnia, on the other hand, could swear she had seen the look on the girl's face somewhere else before.

"So why not stopping fighting and work together? Blackarachinia and me can use the factory to rebuild you, and we can figure out how to open the AllSpark-thing while we're at it. If we don't, it just means we have to use the body built for you. If it does, then you get your body back and Blackarachnia can fix hers."

Both Megatron and Blackarachnia looked at each other for a moment, expressions of deliberation on their faceplates (or at least, on Blackarachnia's) before they turned to suspicion and looked back at Sari.

"There are two sides to every deal, organic," Megatron said coldly, "You have told us what we would receive, but what do _you_ get out of this?"

Sari swallowed slightly as the nervousness and fear returned at the tone of Megatron's voice, but she pressed on. She'd come too far to stop now; she merely focused on what she needed these two for, and the anger that conjured up was enough to keep her going.

"I told you my father's company fell apart after he died, right? Well, what I didn't tell you was that it _wasn't_an accident. It was done on purpose, by my dad's business partner: Porter C. Powell."

Blackarachnia was slightly startled by the venom in Sari's voice when she said this other organic's name. Clearly, she hated this "Powell" person with a passion that she didn't think a child was capable of.

"After my dad died, I was supposed to inherit control of his company," Sari continued, "But then Powell started saying that there was no official proof that I was ever born; and since I technically didn't exist, I couldn't inherit what was rightfully mine. And to add insult to injury, that… that… _jerk_, threw me out of my home and left me to rot on the streets. Then I had to watch as he took control of my father's company and tore it down, so that he could replace it with his own."

Sari paused as tears of both sorrow and anger threatened to spill down her face. She shut her eyes and took several breaths to try and calm herself down; talking about everything that had happened was bringing up all the emotions she'd been trying to repress lately. And it wouldn't do her any good to break down and appear weak in front of the only people who could help her, not when they seemed to only care for themselves.

After she managed to compose herself, Sari reopened her eyes and took a moment to study her potential allies. Blackarachnia had a look on her faceplate that looked vaguely like concern, but Megatron looked like he couldn't care less about her personal problems – although, it was hard to tell with his lack of a face.

"You want to know what I get out of this?" she asked, looking directly into Megatron's optics, "Fine. Here it is: I'll help you rebuild your body, and help Blackarachnia figure out how to use the AllSpark to fix hers. And in return, you'll help me make Powell pay for _everything _he's done to me. So, do we have a deal?"

The room was silent for a moment as the two machines look at each other. Then, the silence was broken as Megatron let out a laugh that made Sari's skin crawl.

"So, you're willing to rebuild the most feared being in several galaxies, just to satisfy your own need for vengeance, are you?" he asked, before laughing again and continuing, "How very… _Decepticon _of you. You have potential, child." The disembodied head paused, then added, "Very well. I agree to your terms organic. Blackarachnia?"

The techno-organic Transformer tapped a claw against one of her normal legs in thought. She didn't like making deals; the last time she'd made one, it had been her services to the Decepticon "Empire" in exchange for access to the AllSpark once it was found. Now, the object of her desires was in her grasp – why barter for it?

"_Then again,_" she argued with herself, "_The human has a good point. While I can take the AllSpark, I have no idea how to open it and use its power. Doesn't seem like I have much choice, does it?_"

"Fine," Blackarachnia finally said, "I'll agree to this deal – for now, anyway."

Sari smiled, and nodded at both of the bots' acceptance of her idea. She was overcome with a feeling of success, and the once far-away hope that Powell and perhaps even Fanzone would get what they deserved now seemed to be closer and brighter then ever. Fanzone himself was only a secondary target in her mind; he had done what he did because it was his job, and the man had always seemed more political than a normal officer. Supporting Powell was a political power move for him.

But Powell… Powell was going to get everything she could throw at him and more. She had a means now to her revenge, and she had allies. The thought that no normal eight-year old would be having the same thoughts as her was brushed aside by the fact that no normal eight-year old ever had their lives ruined by someone like Powell.

With a tight grip on her key around her neck, she remembered that she had one and one-quarter bots in the room with her. Reining in her expressions to try and appear as serious as possible, she decided that it would be best to try and stay on both the bots' good sides. With a calm tone edging her voice she spoke up again.

"Alright then, we have a deal. But I don't think we've been formally introduced, and my father taught me that it was best to know your partners both formally and informally. My name is Sari Sumdac, daughter of Isaac Sumdac."

Both Blackarachnia and Megatron exchanged glances before silently deciding to play along with their new ally. Blackarachnia started, leaning to one side and crossing her arms.

"Blackarachnia, Officer and Scientist of the Decepticon forces."

Megatron was next, his voice smooth and powerful. There was no pride or anything; what came out was a statement of fact, or the simple recital of an irrevocable law.

"Megatron, Lord and Supreme Leader of the Decepticon Empire and all its forces."

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Detroit, Junkyard on the West Side**

Sari carefully walked through the stacks of vehicles and spare parts, trying to avoid the pack of custom bots kept by the old man who ran the junkyard she was in. The bots were nasty, and they were dangerous. They might not have any weapons like the PoTech security drones did, but they did have brute strength and a nasty set of sharp and deadly tools to use on her if they found her. The fact that she was a young girl would most likely go over both the bots and their owner's heads, and would just opt for beating her to a pulp before turning her over to the police.

If there was enough of her to turn in afterwards that was.

She peeked around one stack, and looked around. So far she was in the clear, but she did not want to push her luck farther then she could. The fact that she was doing this without telling her new partners was pushing it as it was, and if not for the benefits from her little plan she would not be bothering with it at all.

But then again the cons to it were pretty big as well, now that she thought about it. She might make both Blackarachnia and Megatron mad, and she was not really up to facing either one if it ended up going sour. Megatron she was not so worried about, since he was pretty much stuck and unable to do anything till he was repaired, and he had still not noticed the amount of wireless tools that he could probably use that were scattered around the room he was in.

But Blackarachnia was what really scared her. The Femme - as the fairer side of the Transformer race was apparently termed - did not come off as the most pleasant of people to Sari, and the fact that she had clearly not really wanted to be part of the deal had impressed the notion that spoiling it with her was not exactly a good idea. The fact that she also transformed into a rather large spider that was most likely equipped with a variety of venom's played a part in her thoughts as well.

She shook these depressing thoughts from her head and turned back to her task, looking around for just the right ones. The junkyard was filled with countless wrecks and almost-wreaks, along with the rare vehicle that was in a fairly good condition.

But none of them so far were what she was looking for.

She had come to the conclusion that she needed her own bots – the ones in the factory were loyal to her, but they could easily be reprogrammed. Besides, they were all pathetically weak; they wouldn't be much of a help if her new "partners" did decide to turn on her. Sari needed a way to protect herself just in case – and besides, this would be the perfect way to test the limit of her key's power.

Now, if only she could find some vehicles in this stupid junkyard that were worth using!

After half an hour, Sari was just about ready to give up and call it a night. Hearing some of the custom bots approaching, she quickly squeezed her way through two partially demolished vans and hoped the bots wouldn't notice her. A few moments later, she heard the bots go by and judged it safe to move again. She weaved her way through the piles of scrap metal as she made her way back towards the hole in the security fence that she had used to enter the junkyard. Just before she reached it, however, she entered a small clearing amongst the virtual mountains of scrap and stopped dead in her tracks.

"_Jackpot,_" she thought, as a grin spread over her face.

Nestled among all the other vehicles in this area of the junkyard were four that looked like they were in almost-mint condition. And they were pretty stylish, if Sari had to add her personal opinion.

There was a white Pontiac Trans AM with black-tinted windows and silver-gold detailing, and next to that was a black Lotus Esprit with red windows and matching red detailing – what Sari liked best about them was that they seemed to have been more designed as muscle cars than the more common sleeker versions. On the other side of the clearing was a silver-grey motorcycle with red detailing; and a little further away was another 'cycle, this one purple-and-gold-yellow with silver detailing.

She ran up to them, and started to look them over. They might have looked almost-mint condition, but there could always be some sort of damage or something, and even if the key could fix anything she did not want to risk finding out it only had so much power before it needed a break.

She did not manage to find anything absolutely wrong with her choices, so she started looking for ways to skip having to use the key on them one by one and get them all at once. Luckily whoever had been the former owners of one of the muscle cars had been so kind as to forget his rather pricey-looking multi-connection jumper cables in the back seat when he had dropped it off here at the yard, and the only problem after that was getting the clamps on each end connected to each vehicle.

Unfortunately, the cables were not long enough to reach the two 'cycles on the other side of the clearing, so she had to dig them out from the rest of the junk and roll them over to near where the two cars were. After that small challenge, it had been fairly simple to get them all hooked up.

Sari stood back and admired her work, and dusted herself off. Every one of the vehicles was now connected by a web work of jumper cables, with one last set of cables lying at her feet. Happy that everything was in order she snatched it up and carefully clipped the two clamps onto her key, careful to keep the key at arm's length as small sparks and arcs of stray energy jumped off the key and into the air with each clamp.

After that it just consisted of trying to not get fried as the key started to glow, as energy poured into the cables, and Sari watching as things unfolded.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**The Moon, Crash Site of the ****Nemesis**

It might not have been the best landing he could have managed, but then again the fact that the ship was still roughly as intact as it had been before the landing was something of an accomplishment. In fact, it was nothing short of a blessing that Starscream had managed to land the ship at all and not end up a metallic smear across the pathetic excuse for a moon; but then again it was only natural since he was the one piloting the ship.

Now the only problem was that the blasted excuse for a computer refused to pinpoint the exact location of the AllSpark, and would only repeat the same message over and over again. It just displayed a large native city as the general location and would not give him any further details.

"_Slaggin' outdated software,_" he cursed, "_Why is it whenever I need something done right, I have to do it myself?_"

With a growl of irritation, Starscream looked through the cracked viewscreen at the blue-and-green planet his search had led him to. Almost as if fate were adding insult to injury, the planet was inhabited primarily by organics – and Starscream _hated_ organics. The fact that he would have to dirty his servos taking the AllSpark from a bunch of the little vermin was grating on his last synaptic relay.

Coming to a conclusion, the Seeker typed a command into the console… and then cursed again as he was forced to hit it in order to make it process his orders.

A few moments later, a hatch opened in the side of the _Nemesis,_ and a robotic drone similar to one of the Autobots' SkySpies shot out into space. It quickly made its way into orbit around Earth, and began remotely hacking into the telecommunication satellites in the general vicinity; through these, it quickly accessed the local DataNet and began gathering information on the city where the AllSpark had been detected.

Starscream watched in mild interest as the Spy-drone pulled up various random information on the city, but then his optics widened as it pulled up several recent media files.

"_What in the Pit are the Autobots doing here?!_"

There was a screeching sound as Starscream's claws dug several deep furrows into the armrest. It figured – he was so close to gaining the AllSpark, and those accursed Autobots just _had_ to show up and complicate matters. Not that he thought they'd be much of a problem; at the most, they would simply delay his conquest. And he had already waited fifty stellar-cycles too long…

Starscream had been called many things over the millennia: coward, egomaniac, suck-up, liar – he'd admit to any of these, if only to himself. But, if there was one thing he wasn't, was patient. The AllSpark was within his grasp, and he was _not_ going to let a bunch of sniveling Auto-trash stand in his way. After all, he was Starscream, Supreme Leader of the Decepticons. Megatron had stood in his way and had been eliminated; so too would be the fate of these Autobots.

With that thought in mind, Starscream started cackling madly, as he ordered the Spy-drone to begin searching for all information on these particular Autobots. The more he knew about them, the easier it would be to get rid of them and take the AllSpark for his own.

"_This is going to be fun…_"


	11. Chapter 11

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachina and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: _A small chapter, to tide you over while we work on the bigger one. But even if this might count as filler, we made sure it was high quality. Got lots of things for you to gnash your teeth on, and a few things that might answer your questions and also leave you with more. Enjoy, and plz R&R.  
_

**Chapter 11: Me, Myself, and I**

**Abandoned Factory, Dream World**

Sari had decided.

This place was messed up and no way was she going to stay here any longer then she had too.

Problem was there was no way out.

The entire place looked like it was made out of circuit boards and black metal, and then there was the fact that there was no apparent law of gravity to keep her on the ground. That is, if there was any ground for her to stand on, not that she could see any. All that she could do was float along in the dark confines of the chamber, and stare at the distant walls.

Not that she was alone, but then again she was trying to pretend the other two didn't exist.

But then again the both of them staring at her were not making it easy, so she was trying to find something remarkable in the walls' design to focus on. But all that there was to focus on was the endless patterns of glowing circuits, and shiny black metal. Nothing else, and staring too long gave her headaches. So she really did not have any choice but to turn her head and look at the other two that floated along with her.

Now normally she wouldn't have minded some company, and in this place that was reinforced. But the fact was that the only other two people here creeped her out to the point that it was almost scary, and if it was not scary then it was just plain creepy to the point of being weird.

This was because the only people here - counting herself - were her, herself, and she.

To put it bluntly, having what looked to be mirror images of herself, only looking like teenagers and not eight-year olds, just _float _there in place and stare was what made it so creepy.

That and the fact that they looked so _alike _and yet _different _was really not helping. Sari could maybe understand being trapped in some weird room with two people that _just _happened to look exactly like her except older, but then again that would make things too easy wouldn't it? But _noooo_, they just _had _to make it even harder.

Both looked like what she figured she would most likely look like when she became a teen (if she lived that long), but beyond that they were completely different. Teen-Sari on the right was wearing a yellow-ish/orange dress-like thing, like the one she used to wear all the time before Powell sent her life into a tailspin, and had her red hair up into a small set of ponytails. But there were a few things different about it, which had not been on the original.

For one thing, the stockings or whatever they were that covered Teen-Sari's legs had not been a part of the original dress, nor had been the sleeves that extended all the way to being fingerless gloves. The glowing blue "crest" in the middle of the chest was pretty new to her as well, and the almost mechanical-looking seams where the joints in the arms and legs were almost gave her the look of some sort of fancy robot. But what really captured her attention were the teen's eyes...

They were the lightest blue she had ever seen, and they seemed to glow with an inner light. No, scratch that, they _did _glow with an inner light. In the semi-dark of the strange chamber they were a warm source of light.

The other Teen-Sari though, was different yet the same. Where the one on the right was dressed in warm, inviting colors and seemed to radiate friendliness, this one was dressed in just the opposite. A stark yet strangely fitting jumpsuit hugged the blossoming curves on this version of her older self, and was decked out in dark colors like deep purples, reds and blacks. Where the other Sari had pinned her hair up and into ponytails, this one had her hair short and loose, and it seemed to almost flow with even the slightest movement. While the other Sari had a blank yet friendly expression, this one had a gleaming smile on her lips.

But then Sari looked at her eyes.

The smile stopped long before it halfway reached the glowing, blood red eyes. Where she knew only her pupils and such were that strange bloody red, this version's eyes were completely red, and glowed with a fierce and almost evil inner light. Sari had to strain her eyes, just to make out this version's pupils against the red glow. Not that she stared into them long, before she retreated her gaze elsewhere from discomfort.

Both elder versions did not seem to mind the stares and looks, if anything they seemed to encourage them. They stood a bit straighter, and they seemed to float a bit closer so she could get to see them better. Deciding that she wanted some answers, she turned to look at them both at the same time, and pinned them both with a glare.

Even if she did not get a response, the action helped build her confidence to talk to them, and she turned her attention to the darker looking Sari on the left and asked the grinning teenager a question, even if it came out more like a demand.

"Who are you?"

The grin grew slightly, and the darkly dressed teen let out a chuckle that sent a chill down Sari's spine.

"I was wondering when you were going to ask that," she said in a voice that was eerily similar to Sari's; the only real difference was that there was an echoing effect that distorted the voice. "For a minute there I actually thought you were just going to stare at us like an idiot the whole time."

Sari glared at her older copy, while the Teen-Sari on the right crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head at the one on the left.

"You technically just insulted yourself, you know that right?" she asked. Like Left Teen-Sari, Right Teen-Sari spoke in a slightly echoing, distorted voice. However, while the other one's voice had a harsh edge to it, hers had more of a softer tone.

"Bite me, you pansy" Left snapped.

Sari cleared her throat, attempting to get the two copies' attention. When they both looked at her again, she irritably said, "You still haven't answered my question."

The two copies shared a look, before Right spoke up. "Well, to put it simply, we're you. To be more specific, we're different parts of your personality."

Sari blinked. "Huh?"

Right sighed and looked over at Left for some help; however, the red-eyed teen merely smirked and gave her a look that clearly said '_Oh no, you're on your own._'

Right sighed again and scratched her head in thought. Then she snapped her fingers as a thought hit her. "Let me put it this way," she said, "You know how in those old cartoons characters had those little angel and devil figures on their shoulders? Think of us as being like them."

Sari raised an eyebrow at this. "Let me see if I get this straight – you two are the little voices that tell me whether to do things or not. Is that about right?"

"Pretty much," Left said, "You know all those times you felt bad about doing things you had to in order to survive, like steal? Well, that was little Ms. Goody Two-Shoes over here." She gestured at Right, who glared at her. But before the blue-eyed teen could retort, Left continued.

"I, on the other hand, am the more practical side of your mind. I was the one who told you that working with Blackarachnia and Lor… and Megatron was the best way for you to get even with Powell."

Sari noticed the little slip of the tongue, but before she could ask whom else Left was about to mention, Right spoke up.

"Yeah, that was a _real _smart move," she said sarcastically, "These guys have the word 'Deception' in their name – how trustworthy are they? Besides, getting revenge on Powell isn't going to bring her father back, and it definitely isn't going to improve her life any."

"Oh, so she should go back to your plan then?" Left snapped, "Slowly rot to death on the streets, feeling guilty about getting her hands on enough food to live past the current day… I don't know, it seems a little counter-productive to me."

Before the argument could continue any further, Sari whistled sharply to once again get their attention – something that was getting really old, really fast. When both of the teenaged duplicates were looking at her again, she said, "Look, can we just get to the part where you two tell me why I'm here? And where exactly _here _is?"

Left and Right glared at each other some more, then Left said, "Well, to answer your second question first, this is your mind. Or at least, a representation of it that allows us to speak to each other."

Sari blinked and took another look around. "If this is my mind, why does it look like the inside of a computer?"

"That's not important right now," Right said a bit too quickly for Sari's liking, "What is important is why we've brought you here. The reason for that is that your life is nearing an important turning point. And when that moment comes, you'll have to make a choice – to either follow the path of self-destruction your negative impulses," she paused to gesture at Left, "have begun you upon, or to listen to reason and follow the destiny you were meant to have." At this last part she pointed to herself.

Sari just stared at the teen, a skeptical look on her face and pointed at Left. "Really now? So your saying that messed up me over there is going to get me killed if I listen to her," Sari then pointed at Right "and that if I listen to you I going to have to follow some weird destiny to who knows what?"

Right just nodded her head, while Left just looked disgusted for some reason. The reason was clear enough a moment later when Left made her opinion known with a snarl. "Don't bother listening to her kid, she's got this idea in her head that the so-called 'destiny' that you _could_ have had if your dad had lived still applies to your current situation. _She_ thinks that you should be the goody two-shoes she is and just lay down and take what Powell did with no complaints, and that everything will work out just like some happy-sappy fairy tale, shining knight and all that junk and that karma is going to come around and take care of Powell for us."

But before Left could continue, Right burst into the conversation with a snarl of her own and her blue eyes blazing. She was apparently not exactly pleased with Left's take on things. "Oh _really?!_ In case you've forgotten, it still does! Sari is not meant to take the path that she is following now and it's going to lead her, us, and everyone else to an early grave at worst and a misery-filled life at best! And I have no intention to just _let_ her suffer at Powell's hands, but there is little alternative!"

Left snarled back, her own eyes blazing in all their bloody ruby-red glory. It was becoming apparent to Sari that these two hated each other with a passion, and that while getting her in here to meet with them was a group effort, it was quickly deteriorating into a fight. "So she should just sit back and rot?! Well I say she keeps going like she is and takes the chance at Powell she is getting! If we do things your way then we are not going to live long enough to worry about_ any_ of that EVER happening! And while she's at it, she can also take some time with Fanzone and everyone else that put her here in the first place!"

At this point, Sari knew that she was not going to be able to get any more answers out of the pair. She was more worried about not getting caught in the crossfire when the two started fighting, and with the way she could see them eying each other that was not really going to take long to come about. But just as Left and Right lashed out at each other, the inner realm of her mind fell apart to be replaced by sunlight and a blurry bunch of glowing lights.

When she could see clearly, the lights turned out to be one set of optics that seemed to shift colors endlessly and two sets of red optics that belonged to a trio of bots.

She found it strange that there were so many optics staring down at her in worry, but her mind cleared soon enough for her to realize what was happening, just in time for her to hear the voices that went with the optics of the three bots. "Boss, youz ok? Youz was outs pretty hard dere, had us, uh, almost _worried _youz knows. Not dat we were, buts stillz...."

After this strangely accented voice finished, the other two joined in. One sounded exactly like the first and repeated the question in roughly the same words, but the last one was much different. This one was feminine and strong, unlike the other two that were definitely male.

"Stop pestering her you slag-heads, let her wake up, and go do something useful for a change. Like jump in a compactor or something, and free the rest from your stupidity before it has a chance to become contagious. How the two of you can _be_ so utterly incompetent after being alive for such a short amount of time amazes me; one would think you actually were putting an effort into it. I still wish our last member did not have the talents he did, or else he might be here to help spare me from the two of you."

Sari was starting to get tired of all the bickering she was apparently being forced to endure, both in and out of her dreams. Not that she really remembered the dream; it was already starting to fade away into her memory. She was trying to hold on to it, but it was proving difficult and the arguing trio above her was not making it any easier. So she decided to shut them up, and jumped up suddenly and shouted at them.

"Will you all be quiet?! You're giving me a headache!"

The three bots immediately fell quiet and gave her apologetic looks. Sighing, Sari rubbed the side of her head to ward off the migraine that was forming behind her eyes.

"Look, just get me something to eat, okay? And some of that Aspirin I took from that pharmacy last week. My head is killing me."

The two nearly-identically mechs nodded and wandered off to the part of the factory where Sari stored her supplies. The femme stayed behind for a moment and gave her a concerned look.

"You sure you're alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sari muttered, waving her hand dismissively, "Now come on. We've got a big day ahead of us."

The femme nodded and walked off after the two mechs. Sari stayed where she was and fingered the key around her neck, while somewhere in the back of her mind a voice eerily similar to hers chuckled sinisterly.

"_A big day indeed._"


	12. Chapter 12

******My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachina and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N: ****_And it is on! Here is the biggest chapter so far for MBSTS, and with lots of development. Also lots of Set up for the next chapter, but thats another story. Anyways, lets keep it simple. I would love for everyone to give a hand to My Beta and Co-author, Zim'sMostLoyalServant who worked extremely hard this chapter. Now, everyone enojy the latest chapter of MBSTS, and leave lots of Reviews! _**

**Chapter 12: Conversations and Conflicts**

**Autobot Ship, Two Days after the Deal**

Prime stared up at the bridge's main screen. Currently, it was displaying video footage of their fight with the spider-like femme known as Blackarachnia from two nights previous, which had been hacked from some nearby traffic cameras.

So far, the only things that Prime could ascertain about her were that she was definitely an odd mix of organic and technological components, and, even more disturbingly, she was a Decepticon. The crest on her chest, as well as her apparent disregard for the well being of her opponents, left no room for doubt about that.

"Slag," Prime muttered. Prowl, who was standing next to him with his arms crossed over his chest, nodded his agreement.

"My sentiments exactly," he said, "Last time we went up against a Decepticon we were lucky to survive. While this femme isn't quite on Megatron's level, I believe the fact that I took her by surprise was the only reason we were able to walk away from this fight."

Just then, the doors to the bridge opened and Ratchet walked in followed by Bulkhead and Bumblebee. The big green mech was rubbing his sore jaw-plate, while the yellow speedster seemed to be fidgeting more than usual.

"Well, these two are all checked out," the medic said, "I was pretty concerned about Bumblebee for a cycle, but he's fine."

"Fine?!" Bumblebee shouted, "That crazy spider lady violated me! She pumped me full of some organic goo and copied _my _stingers, and you say I'm _fine?!_" He probably would have continued ranting, but Bulkhead cut him off by putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Relax, little buddy," he said, "I'm sure if the doc-bot says you're fine, then you're fine."

Bumblebee merely grumbled something unintelligible. Prime, meanwhile, raised an optic ridge in confusion. "Organic goo?" he asked.

Ratchet nodded. "Not quite how I'd put it, but yeah. I found the stuff working its way through his fuel lines and shorting out all his primary systems; I've never seen anything like it before. Then again, I've never seen a partially organic Transformer before, and as Bumblebee's so fond of pointing out, I've been around for a long time."

Bumblebee snickered slightly, but before Ratchet or Prime could quiet him, Prowl stepped forward and stopped the video footage. He then rewound it until it showed the human child they had been chasing prior to the fight with Blackarachnia.

"Something wrong?" Prime asked.

Prowl held up a finger servo. "Just a nano-cycle," he said, "Something just occurred to me."

The view on the screen focused in on the organic's face. The screen then split, and the other side brought up the footage that their SkySpy had taken of their fight with the giant insect. That view then focused in as close as possible on the mysterious figure on the roof that had been cheering the mutant on.

"I think we just found our mystery antagonist," the ninja-bot said.

The rest of the Autobots shuttered their optics in surprise – they didn't have a very good look at the human on the rooftop, but there did appear to be similarities.

"Okay… now I'm confused," Bulkhead said, scratching the side of his head.

Ratchet crossed his arms. "Let me see if I've got this straight," he said, "That kid, who is apparently some small-time thief, is also trying to slag one of the most important humans in this city? And is working with the Decepticons to do it?"

"It makes sense," Prowl said, "You said so yourself, Ratchet – the nanites that created that insect were of Decepticon design, even if only reverse-engineered. This child, whoever she is, is clearly working with the Decepticons. Why else would Blackarachnia come to her aid?"

"Which still leaves us with a few questions," Prime said, staring at the screen, "Who is this organic? Why does she want to kill Powell? And why is she working with the Decepticons?"

"_And why does Blackarachnia seem so familiar?_" he added silently to himself.

"Maybe we should ask this Powell guy," Bulkhead said.

When the others all looked at him in confusion he explained, "What I mean is, even though he obviously can't explain why this kid is working with the Decepticons, he should at least be able to tell us who she is and why she's after him."

Prime nodded. "Good thinking, Bulkhead."

Bulkhead leaned over and whispered to Bumblebee, "Did ya hear that? He said 'good thinking'!"

"Yeah, and 'Bulkhead'," Bumblebee said with a small smirk, "Never thought I'd hear those words all in the same sentence."

Any further conversation was cut off when an alarm went off. Prowl typed some commands into the main console, and looked over at Prime. "Teletran-1's picking up a police broadcast. Apparently there's a break-in in progress at a PoTech Industries office building downtown. They suspect it's a robbery; there are reports of hostages."

Everyone was silent for a moment as they processed this. "You… you don't think it's _her,_ do you?" Bumblebee asked, gesturing towards the screen, which was still showing the two images of the young organic.

"Only one way to find out," Prime said, "Autobots! Transform and roll out!"

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Downtown Detroit, PoTech offices.**

This was remarkably easy, for something that should have been so hard. Breaking into the building had only taken a few minutes at best, and after that it had been a rather short wait for the hovering security drones to take control of the plain, three-story building. The little drones were now partnered with a squadron of old multi-purpose bots, and with a few Taz-Sticks and a little programming they kept the office workers in check. Sari really did not want to do this, but she couldn't back out of the deal now. She _needed _to do this, or else she was not going to have any chance at all of holding up her end of the bargain with Megatron and Blackarachnia - even if she was starting to regret ever opening her mouth in the first place.

Sari had been thinking about it for the last few days, and had come to realize something. While she had been able to teach herself how to program, and how to hack to a degree, she really had no idea how to actually _build _anything. She couldn't even take apart one of her old toys and be expected to put it back together again, but she had gone and opened her big mouth, and was now expected to uphold her part of the deal. A deal that detailed that she help build Megatron a super-advanced robotic body to replace the one the Autobots had trashed.

That reminded her, she really had to find out _how _that had happened as well as a few other things. Like _what was _a Decepticon in the first place? After they had formally introduced themselves, the two had not really bothered to explain anything else to her.

Blackarachnia had left saying that she would be gone for the next few days to get to know the city layout, and Megatron had insisted that Sari leave the computer room and him alone. After that, she had not seen or heard him, and she wanted it that way for a bit longer. At least until she could figure out how to explain the results of her little trip to the junkyard, or something to that effect. But first, she had to finish this and get her father's old notes back. Once she had those she would be able to self-teach herself on the basics of robotics, and from there she could figure out the rest.

At least she hoped she could.

But first she had to get the notes from where Powell had stored them, here in this office. That fact alone that Powell had somehow managed to make off with her father's notes and designs was enough to almost bring Sari's blood to a boil, but she tucked it away for later. She _would _make him pay for destroying her life after her father died, but for now he was as untouchable as the sun and stars were to her.

She peeked around the corner and into the room, and once she was sure it was safe she walked in. All around the room were groups of people, men and women and even the odd teen all dressed in business casual style. Right behind her was a small group of bots, different than the ones that kept the workers contained.

The first two members of Sari's little group were a pair of delivery bots, the same make and model as the one she had used when she had broke into that fashion store. But the other one was different. She had managed to find a mix-up among the other bots in her factory, a construction bot equipped with a multitude of tools for any kind of work it might do.

But Sari had other plans for it.

Now only if everyone would stop staring at her. What was she, a carnival freak?

"What is this, some sort of joke?" one of the older male workers blurted out. Sari raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"These robots burst in here and take us all hostage, and we're supposed to believe that some kid is responsible?" the man said, "Now, I demand to talk to whoever is really behind this, young lady."

Sari merely shook her head. She'd been hoping to avoid this – she wanted to get this whole thing done with quickly, and it wouldn't help if no one was taking her seriously. Deciding to grit her teeth and bare it, she spoke up.

"Look buddy, whether you want to believe it or not, I'm the one running this show." Ignoring the man's dismissive snort, she continued, "And I really don't want to hurt anyone… well, no one who's in this room, anyway. So, just tell me where that rich jerk you all work for would keep his important documents in this building, and I'll be on my way."

"Ah-ha, so it's industrial espionage!" the same employee shouted, "Who are you working for? Stark Industries? Wayne Enterprises? I knew all of them are jealous of Mr. Powell's genius, but to go this far is outrageous! Whatever they're paying you, girl, it isn't worth the jail time you'll get when Mr. Powell and the police are through with you. You should just-"

"You know what?" Sari interrupted, "You're _really _starting to annoy me. So why don't you just shut up and sit down?"

The man's face turned red. "How dare you? I should – _arrgh!_"

He shouted and then collapsed to the ground, still twitching slightly from where one of the multi-purpose bots guarding his group had zapped him with its Taz-Stick. All of the other hostages – she hated to use that word, but it was the only one that fit the situation – stared at their comrade in shock, then turned to look at Sari. The eight-year old simply shrugged nonchalantly.

"I asked him nicely," she said, "Now, who wants to answer my question?"

One of the teenage employees – probably an intern, she figured – raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"U-upstairs," the intern stuttered, "Archives at the end of the hall. Mr. Powell keeps hardcopy backups of everything in his personal files up there. T-that's probably where you'll find whatever you're looking for."

"Thank you," Sari said with a smile. She then turned around and walked out of the room, followed by her little group. "Make sure none of them go anywhere," she added over her shoulder to the guard-bots.

A few minutes later, Sari was on the top floor. Reaching the end of the hall, she found the door labeled "Archives" to be locked with a fingerprint scanner.

"_I guess that Powell doesn't want anyone else to look at his little secrets,_" she said to herself.

Seeing that her key probably wouldn't work on this particular lock, she gave a signal to the construction bot. The bulky machine lumbered forward and opened one of the compartments on its body. Removing a sledgehammer, it attached the blunt tool to its arm and began slamming it into the door.

After a few blows, the metal door had bent inwards. A few more, and it had been completely knocked off its hinges. Sari stepped through the now open doorway and into a fairly large room filled with filing cabinets. Quickly locating the cabinets labeled "S", Sari turned to the bots accompanying her.

"Open them up and grab anything labeled with my father's name. And do it quick."

The construction bot merely confirmed the order in a monotone, and replaced the sledgehammer with several cutting tools. It then got to work opening the cabinets, working on two at a time, removing the locks on the drawers.

Sari left the bots to their work, walking out into the hallway to gather her thoughts. She really hated having to take hostages like some terrorist, but she didn't have a choice. She needed these files if she was going to uphold her deal with Megatron, and that deal was the only way she had of getting her revenge on Powell.

She was pulled from her musings by the sound of sirens. Looking out the hallway window, she said a few words someone her age had no right knowing when she saw several police cars and SWAT vans pulling up in front of the building. She cursed some more when a familiar yellow Bug also drove up and the familiar bulk of Captain Fanzone stepped out.

"Alright, listen up in there!" the captain shouted through a megaphone, "Release the hostages and come out with your hands up!"

Sari quickly glanced back into the archives room – the construction bot had opened several of the cabinets, and the delivery bots were filling their compartments with every file they could grab. But there were still several cabinets still locked, and she was almost completely surrounded by police.

"_Oh, this is _so _not good._"

Sari looked back and forth for a moment, panicking. She still needed more time, and if she pulled out now there was a chance she would leave something important behind. There was also the chance that Fanzone would find out it was her doing this, and that would mean Powell would find out as well. That was the last thing she wanted.

Casting one last glance out the windows at the police she turned back to her bots as they worked together. The construction bot had managed to open up two more, and was working on another, and the delivery bots were still busy filling every nook and cranny they had with more files, disks, and folders. But they were nowhere near finished. She needed to buy some more time to get the last cabinets open, and she needed to buy it soon.

She could pull out the trio and have them cut into the police and Fanzone, but Sari wanted to save them for her getaway incase the Autobots showed up again to stop her, and she had little doubt they would. If they would try to stop some small-timer from knocking off a fashion store, then they would definitely try and stop her now that she had upgraded to what could be classified as corporate burglary and a few other charges she was not going to worry herself over. So that left her with her forces in the building itself, and the few she had left outside.

Making her decision, she ordered the construction drone and its two cohorts the delivery bots to stay behind and continue and meet her at the back entrance when they were finished. She then stormed down the hall to the elevator and rode down to the next floor. When she arrived she ignored the hopeful looks of the office workers and their questions and instead turned to the groups of bots that were just milling about waiting for orders, or to help the ones guarding the employees, and started yelling out commands.

"You bots, get to the front entrance! Grab every bot on your way that's not doing anything important and get them there as well! Afterwards wait for my orders and stop anyone that tries to come in!"

The bots snapped to attention and gave mock-salutes, before making for the stairs and elevators themselves. Sari hoped they would be able to get to the bottom floor in time, and pulled out a small cell phone-like device from one of her sleeve pockets. A press of a button later and she was connected to the radio channel for the small groups of bots she had left outside the building just incase and started giving orders.

"Ground bots, get into the alleys behind the police and stay hidden until I tell you otherwise. Air bots get ready to clear the rooftops. Don't do a thing until I tell you or you're found out."

She snapped the device shut, and was eternally thankful that she had the idea to rig up a wireless command system. Most of the time the bots she used had to be ordered manually in order for them to do something, much less anything at all. If she hadn't, then this little break-in would have been impossible in the first place even with the old multi-purpose bots she had found. It was pure luck even then, that she had found them with weapons in the form of Taz-Sticks since a lot of them were used as guards and watchmen for schools and private houses.

That she had found so many of them, along with more racks of the smaller orb-like security drones could have almost been considered a blessing from some god or another. Even if they were only equipped with stun weapons, that was enough for Sari. She did not want to really hurt anyone; she just wanted them to get out of her way at best. But as she stood and thought for a moment, one particular thought came to the forefront, almost violently so.

How in the _world_ did she know what she was doing? Looking back at her recent actions and ignoring the weird looks from the employees, she remembered everything she had done so far. And to her confusion, she realized something, something that spooked the eight-year old. Ever since she had started this break-in, she had acted differently then normal. It was like it was not really _her_ doing anything, but someone else and she was just watching the show. She should have had no idea what so _ever_ on what to do now, and she sure as heck did not know how to command the bots the way she had been. It was almost surreal in a sense, a very uncomfortable sense.

But yet she did know what to do; she knew the best way to handle things, and the best way to use her bots. They were not real people after all, were they? They were just simple machines that did what they were told and nothing else, and were expendable. After all, she had lots more back at the warehouse right? And there were even other warehouses she could get into if there were no more back home.

But that scared her.

She should not know how to use the bots the best way, should not know what to do and how to do it. Yes, she had grown up on the streets for the last while of her life, and had learned some things. Sure, she had realized that some of the things she had thought she had learned when her father had still been alive were not so useless after all, and that they had real uses in the real world. But this was beyond that; it was like someone was in her head and leading her on. Or maybe they weren't and it was more like pushing her where they wanted to go.

Sari violently shook her head, and wiped the thoughts from her mind. She ignored the looks from the workers, and did not pay any attention to their questions or demands or statements on how she was finished and how she had better set them free. She had bigger things to worry about, like the police and Fanzone and escaping with as many of her bots intact as she could. She would figure it all out later, and worry about if she was going insane or something once she got back home. She might even ask Flamewar about it; the femme seemed to be into that sort of stuff anyways when she was not being all pyro and didn't have that superiority complex of hers on full-blast.

But at the back of her mind, it still poked and prodded her and half-memories of the night before came back to her. She had had a dream, and she remembered that something about it had been important. She tried to remember what, but she could not for the life of her drag a recollection from the depths of her mind. She shook her head one last time to clear it from her mind, and started to make her way through the building and to the rear entrance. She wanted to make sure that she was ready to leave the minute the bots in the archives room were finished.

As she left the room full of innocent employees, the control device started to ring and vibrate against her wrist. She pulled it out and flipped it open, and quickly read the message on the move. Her bots were in position, and ready to do whatever it was she planned.

A significant force was in the lobby, comprised of a few squads of the multi-purpose bots and a couple flight groups of the spheroid drones backing them up and leaving a skeleton force to guard the workers. Not that she was worried about them, by the time someone got the nerve to try anything she would be long gone and the rest of her bots with her.

Outside the building, she had a few more of the multi-purpose bots and spheroid ones hiding and ready to attack from behind. There were about three groups of ten each of the multi-purpose kind and about four groups of twelve of the other. All the bots were armed with only Taz-Sticks or stun guns, and there was pretty much no way they could do any real harm to the police. At best they would be able to knock them out for a few hours, and at worst they would get torn apart while she escaped. Either way she would be able to escape, the only thing she was unsure of was with how many bots and how far she would make it.

If she made it to at least the industrial sector, she could make for an entrance to the underground and head for the junction that was hidden underneath the factory. That was how she had managed to get so many bots from her factory to the downtown area, by making use of the underground tunnels that littered the city. She could find an entrance nearby, but she did not want to risk anyone finding out about it. After all, she was one of the few in the city that really knew about how everything was connected, every sewer and every maintenance tunnel to every subway line and more. Once you could understand the underground, you could get anywhere you wanted and not worry about almost anything. It was also a great way to find half-decent salvage, since a lot of stuff wound up in the sewers.

Turning her attention back to the situation at hand, she found herself at one end of the hallway with the rear entrance/exit at the other end. She had somehow gone from the second floor to the first and through half the building on automatic pretty much, and never even noticed. The problem was, was that she had never even remembered where it had been exactly, so how did she find it?

She had been planning on getting to the first floor and then looking at the building map that was posted at the elevator, but instead she found she had gotten there herself while she was lost in thought. Chalking it up as another thing to add to the list of "_creepy things that I can't explain"_, she decided to deal with it later. But she was surprised to see both the delivery bots and the construction drone loitering about the door waiting for her. She had expected them to be done soon, but not this soon. She really had to stop daydreaming, or else something was going to get her killed one day.

But she was still happy that they were there, since it meant she could leave. She pulled out the cell phone-like control device and issued one last order before she started for the exit.

"All bots, form up and attack the police. Fliers, clear the roofs while ground bots charge the police."

Sari hoped that it was enough, and reached past the three bots in front of her and for the door.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Downtown Detroit, outside PoTech offices.**

"Alright in there, listen up!" Fanzone shouted through his megaphone, "This is your last chance. Either let the hostages go now, or we're coming in. You've got thirty seconds to respond."

Thirty seconds later, just as the captain was about to give the SWAT team the order to move in, the front doors to the office building burst open and a flurry of energy bolts shot out. Fanzone gave an undignified yelp and ducked behind his car, which shielded him from the attack. Several officers around him were not so lucky, however, and were soon lying unconscious on the ground.

The stun bolts stopped a moment later, but soon resumed as dozens of flying spheroid bots flew out of the open doorways, followed by even more of what appeared to be old-fashioned multi-purpose bots armed with Taz-Sticks.

"I think this is their response, sir," one of the SWAT officers next to Fanzone said.

"Gee, ya think?!" the captain snapped, hitting the officer in the head with his megaphone. He then pulled out his radio.

"Sniper teams, take these things out!"

The only response Fanzone got to his order was panicked shouts. Blinking in surprise, Fanzone turned around to look up at the rooftops where he'd posted his sniper teams. When he saw why they weren't responding, he cursed. Even more of the flying bots were attacking them, and more of the ground bots were storming out of alleys behind his main group… and one of them was heading right towards him. Fanzone quickly rolled out of the way, the Taz-Stick missing him by inches and instead smashing his car's windshield.

"This is why I hate machines," Fanzone muttered, before pulling out his gun and shooting the bot in the head.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Downtown Detroit, alley behind PoTech offices**

Hearing the sounds of fighting coming from the front of the building, Sari nodded and gave a quick hand signal to the bots following her. She then ran down the alley, making for the street that ran parallel with the back of the office building.

As soon as she reached the street, she turned to the left and sprinted in that direction, the bots behind her moving at top speed to keep up with her. Unfortunately, she only made it a few yards before a familiar unmanned motorcycle drove out of an alley and cut her off. Sari slid to a stop.

"_Aw, crud._"

Moments later, the rest of the Autobots appeared, including an ambulance that Sari realized must be the reclusive fifth Autobot known as Ratchet. As they transformed into robot mode, she took an instinctive step back, bumping into the construction bot as it and the delivery bots came up behind her. She'd been expecting the Autobots to show up, but she'd also been hoping that they wouldn't.

"Don't you guys ever take a day off?" she asked rhetorically.

"We could ask you the same thing," Prime said, crossing his arms, "Although, it would appear you've set your sights a little higher than petty crime."

Before he could go into another speech on right-and-wrong, Ratchet thankfully interrupted. "Prime, as much as I'm sure you'd love to lecture this sparkling on why she shouldn't be a thief, don't you think we should be helping the police with her drones?"

"Uh, right," Prime said in a tone that implied that he would be blushing if it were possible, "Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Prowl, go aid the police. Ratchet and I will make sure she doesn't go anywhere."

Bumblebee, who was fidgeting slightly, looked over at Prime. "Is it a good idea to split up, Boss-Bot? What if that crazy spider lady shows up again?"

"Oh, you mean Blackarachnia?"

All the Autobots turned to look at Sari, who had a smirk on her face and was backing up slowly.

"Hate to tell you this, guys," she said, glancing behind them, "But you've got bigger problems to worry about than her right now."

Before any of the Autobots could comment on that, there was the rumbling sound of large engines. They quickly spun around, just in time to see a pair of muscle cars – one white, the other black – heading straight towards them. Prowl and Prime jumped out of the way in time, while Ratchet and Bulkhead were knocked aside and Bumblebee was sent flying as he was hit dead on. The muscle cars hit their brakes, sliding to a stop just in front of Sari.

Prime, meanwhile, had just landed in front of an alley. Before he could reorient himself, he heard an engine revving behind him. "Oh, give me a slagging break," he cursed. He turned around, getting a quick view of a silver-grey motorcycle before it launched into the air and landed on his face rear wheel-first. Prime let out a shout of surprise, which was reduced to a garbled mumble as a tire spun on his face for several moments, before the bike used the momentum to launch off of him and fly in the direction of Sari and the muscle cars.

As Prime pulled himself up, he quickly scanned the area to process what had just happened. Prowl had landed on the side of the street opposite him, while Ratchet and Bulkhead were pulling themselves up and Bumblebee had apparently been knocked out. He then turned his attention back to the organic and found that the new vehicles had grouped around her. It was at that point that Prime noticed that neither the bike nor either of the cars had drivers.

"_Aw, slag._"

With an all too familiar sound, the three machines transformed. The motorcycle changed into a tall, thin femme; her body and face were a silvery-grey, while her three-pronged helmet, knees, and elbows were a bright crimson. The two muscle cars, on the other hand, turned into matching bulking figures, their faces covered by visors and facemasks. The only way to tell them apart was by their coloration – one was white with a black visor and silver-gold detailing, while the other one was black with a red visor and red detailing.

The black one spoke first, cracking his hand-servo joints in an intimidating fashion. "Youz guyz want the boss-lady, youz got to go through us first."

"Yeah, what he said," the white one added stupidly, which made the femme roll her optics – which, Prime noticed with a chill, were constantly shifting color.

Sari smirked as she walked past her bots and saw the state they'd left the Autobots in. And they weren't even trying yet.

"Allow me to introduce my friends," she said smugly. She pointed at the femme. "This is Flamewar," she moved her finger to the black mech, "this is Runabout," and finally the white mech, "and this is Runamuck."

She glanced up at Flamewar. "Get 'em," she said flatly.

"With pleasure," the femme said. She then turned her attention to the twin mechs.

"Attack you slag-heads! Or are you just going to stand there?!"

Both Runamuck and Runabout looked at each other, and before the Autobots could react they charged forward while Flamewar held back with Sari. The fight was on.

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**The skies above downtown Detroit**

Such a peaceful little city, full of peaceful little people (for the most part at least). From up here, it had the picture-perfect appearance of civilization that was moving forwards to a happy and bright future for its human inhabitants and their descendants. What more could you want in a world filled with green, a growing world full of organic life?

Too bad he was going burn it to the ground. But hey, who knows? Maybe once he found the AllSpark, he would spare a few thousand of the little squishies and a country or two.

_If_ he was in a good mood afterwards.

But then again that would depend on how much of a fight the Autobots in the city below put up, and judging by the ever so _generous _displays of heroics and general do-goodery they gave the pitiful organics, it would probably be a somewhat amusing fight that would end with the ever-beautiful deactivation of his enemy in a rather artistic display of might on his part. But being the Autobots that they were they would put up a rather annoying fight, never giving in or even whimpering in defeat. Where was the satisfaction in off-lining some bot that had the gall to stare you straight in the optics and tell you to go slag yourself?

Simple. There really wasn't any. But it would all depend on his mood - after all, Starscream was rather open to new experiences and there was always a first time for everything. The Autobots just might surrender, and peacefully hand over the AllSpark under the threat of the little city being obliterated.

Not that he would spare it (or them) in the end; he still had a reputation to uphold after all. And with the AllSpark to make the crowning jewel for his future as Decepticon Lord StarScream, (Primus, that had such a appealing ring to it) and future ruler of Cybertron, he would need a reputation that suited his new titles.

With a sickly grin that would send sparklings running for cover, Starscream transformed back to jet-mode and started his descent into the city, but took his time. After all, he was on the verge of ultimate victory.

This was a moment to savor.


	13. Chapter 13

**My Big Sister the Spider**

**An AU-TF:A Fic, starring Sari, Blackarachnia and the Decepticons**

**Summery: Sari's life is not what it could have been. Her father has died and the company has collapsed due to bad management, leaving Sari with nothing but a life on the streets. Can anything save Sari from a cold lonely death on the streets, and help her discover what she really is?**

**A/N**: After so long, and so much hard work on both my Beta's part and mine we are happy to bring you chapter thirteen! We hope you find this latest addition to MBSTS an enjoyable, and informative, one. A few earlier questions will be answered, and a few new ones put out there for you to boggle over. Enjoy, and R&R!

**Chapter Thirteen: Foes and Friends.**

**Downtown Detroit, One block over from PoTech offices**

Prime jumped to the side as the large black mech called Runabout lunged at him, the muscle car Transformer pulling out an impressive-looking mace as he did so. The heavy blunt head of the mace swept through the air where Prime's own head had been only moments before, while the Autobot leader pulled out his axe. The two weapons clashed with each other, Prime pushing with all his might to keep from being knocked to the ground. However, a moment later something hit the young 'Bot in the side, sending him flying.

When he managed to pull himself up, he found that Runamuck was the one who had hit him. The white mech's right hand had changed into a giant morning star; the spiked head sat on the spot where Prime had been standing mere moments ago, connected to Runamuck's wrist by a long chain. As he pulled back to swing again, however, Bulkhead's wrecking ball shot out and wrapped around the morning star.

Runamuck turned to look at the big green bot, who smirked at him before pulling back on his wrecking ball tether and pulling Runamuck forward so hard he lost his balance and hit the ground. Runabout growled angrily and turned to help his partner, at which point Prime lunged forward and delivered a powerful punch to the side of Runabout's head. The black mech went flying, before being caught midair by Ratchet's magnetic field, which the medic then used to send Runabout flying towards Runamuck, just as the latter was getting up. The two mechs met each other with a crash, collapsing into a heap on the ground.

Prime smirked as he turned to look at the organic child, who was watching all this with a frown. "You're going to have to do better than this if you want avoid going to jail, you know."

To his surprise, the human's frown turned into a grin. "Haven't you ever heard of 'saving the best for last'?" she asked, before turning to look up at Flamewar. The femme nodded, then extended her left arm and flexed her hand. A small tube extended from the wrist, and seconds later several objects shot out almost faster than the Autobots' optics could follow. Fortunately for Prime, Prowl ran forward and tackled him before the objects hit home. Looking down, Prime found to his surprise that the sharp objects now embedded in the ground were shuriken.

Turning to look at Prowl, who seemed equally surprised, Prime asked, "Think you can handle her?"

Prowl looked over at the femme, who was smirking at them. "No problem," he said.

As the cyber-ninja ran off, Prime turned his attention back to Runabout and Runamuck, who had pulled themselves up and were attacking the other Autobots. Picking up his axe, Prime lunged back into the fight.

Prowl ran towards Flamewar, expertly dodging the shuriken she was launching at him. When still a yard away from her and the human, he jumped into the air, flying towards Flamewar. As he neared her, he quickly pulled out a pair of his own shuriken – one in each hand – and began spinning as he prepared to hit her with them. However, before he could make contact, Flamewar surprised him by grabbing his wrists and swinging him around, using his own momentum to throw him away.

He hit the wall of a nearby building, putting a dent in the brick before sliding to the ground with a grunt. As he painfully got to his feet (it felt like something in his shoulder servo had popped loose), he looked over at Flamewar, shocked at how she was able to anticipate and counter his move. This must have shown in his optics, because the silver-grey femme laughed.

"Oh, please. The 'five servos of doom' technique?" she asked with a laugh, "What do you take me for, an amateur?"

"You know Metallikato?" the cycle-bot asked, awe dripping off his voice. This brought on another laugh from Flamewar.

"Know it?" she asked, as her optics turned an extremely dark shade of red, "Fool, I practically _invented _the art."

Without another word, she then reached behind her head and with a screech of metal-on-metal pulled out a very large katana. She brandished it for a moment, before giving a battle cry and lunging at Prowl. The Autobot ninja dodged to the side, the sword just barely missing him and slicing a streetlamp in half.

As Prowl hit the ground, he quickly swept his leg out and kicked Flamewar's out from under her. However, before she hit the pavement she extended her free hand, bracing the palm against the ground and balancing all of her weight on it. She then shifted her weight, turning the fall into a flip that deposited her a few feet away from Prowl, who took the initiative and threw several of his shuriken at her. However, Flamewar fired several of her own shuriken from the launcher in her wrist, which collided with Prowl's midair. The projectiles fell to the ground, having impaled each other and cancelled out their momentum.

Before either of the ninjas could make another move, however, an energy blast hit the femme and sent her sliding several yards down the street. Prowl turned to find that Bumblebee - having recovered from being hit head on by the muscle cars - was responsible, his stingers still crackling with energy. Seeing Prowl's glare, he held up his hands defensively.

"I know, I know," he said, "You work alone. But, I just figured since the others have the two idiots busy, I'd help you with her."

Prowl risked a look behind him, and found that he could barely see the other combatants in this fight due to the dust cloud they were kicking up. Occasionally, he caught sight of Prime's axe, Bulkhead's wrecking ball, Runabout's mace, or Runamuck's morning star, and every now and then the dust cloud was lit up by the glow of Ratchet's electromagnets.

"So," he said, "in other words you didn't want to get involved in that, and thought this would be an easier fight?"

Bumblebee opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it when he realized he didn't have any other answer.

"Yeah, pretty much," he muttered.

Any reply that Prowl had was cut off when Flamewar jumped back to her feet. Her optics shifted to a mix of Autobot blue and Decepticon red as a smirk formed on her face; the overall creepiness of the image made Bumblebee shudder.

Flamewar then extended her right arm, which shifted into a large, bulky tube. She turned it to aim it at the bots before her, and without warning a giant bolt of flame shot out. Bumblebee and Prowl jumped out of the way, but when the shot hit the ground it exploded with such intensity that the force of it sent the two mechs flying. As the smoke cleared, they got back on their feet to find a large crater between them and Flamewar, who was grinning evilly at them.

"…I'd think I'd rather fight the two big guys," Bumblebee whimpered, earning a glare from Prowl.

While all this was going on, Sari had decided to watch from the relative safety of an alley. The delivery and construction bots stood nearby, anxiously rocking on their leg servos as they waited for her to tell them to leave. However, she wasn't giving the order. She knew it was dangerous to stay here in the middle of a giant robot death match, and besides, it wasn't like she could do anything to help her bots fight. But part of her mind wouldn't let her leave; it wanted to stay and watch Flamewar and the twins wipe the floor with the Autobots.

She was pulled from her internal struggle when she felt a tugging on her neck. Looking down, she saw that her key had started to glow. It was also rising up into the air, pointing into the sky and leaving Sari confused as it began to glow even brighter.

Meanwhile, back with Flamewar, Bumblebee and Prowl, it had been reduced to a standoff while both sides waited for the next move. Not that the wait was long, since Flamewar took the moment to try and gain the upper hand. With a click, her shuriken launcher came forward from her wrist again and started firing at the pair. Except this time Prowl got a bad feeling as instead of hitting them each of the metal stars hit the ground around them, and the feeling intensified as he spotted the orange spheres that were centered in each one and he made out a ticking sound over the sound of the brawl not too far away.

It was only due to pure speed and his cyber-ninja training that he was able to grab Bumblebee and get both himself and the yellow bot out of the way, as each of the shuriken exploded with a fiery _boom_. Even from the safe distance Prowl felt the heat as each one of the metal stars became a small nova of fire, and smoke filled the air. By the time the fires burned themselves out the surrounding road was melted, and craters adorned the street. And right through the smoke and molten pavement, the femme identified as Flamewar walked towards them like the cat that caught the canary, her optics now a solid red.

He jumped to his feet and prepared to counter an attack. Looking down, he was about to tell Bumblebee to get up already only to see that the yellow mech had gone and gotten himself knocked out. Prowl then somehow found time to think to himself, "_Fantastic. Bumblebee is useless, and everyone else is busy with the other two mechs."_

He stared down the femme, and wondered why she had stopped and was now staring at him. Since the color of her optics seemed to indicate what she thinking or feeling, Prowl focused on them. Both optics seemed to constantly shift between blue and red, and a few colors in between. The enemy femme also seemed to have a thoughtful expression on her faceplates instead of the formerly cruel and sadistically happy one she had been sporting before.

He was also rather surprised when she spoke instead of attacked, her voice mimicking her expression, full of thought and wonder.

"You know, I can't help but feel like I've met you before, and it's starting to bother me. That and I also feel rather disappointed whenever I look at you, but that might just be because you're no real fun at all. To tell the truth, I was expecting a bit more out of you. You and the old bot seem like the only decent fighters around here, but I guess I got my hopes up. Now what ev-"

Before she could continue however, both fights were interrupted by yells and shouts of panic. Over with Prime, Bulkhead, Ratchet and Runamuck and Runabout, Runabout stopped trying to rearrange Prime's facial features with his mace and Runamuck stopped trying to pummel Bulkhead and Ratchet with his morning star to stare over at the alley where the shouts were coming from. Taking the chance, the Autobots knocked the two bruisers away before looking towards the alley themselves.

There, standing at the entrance, was none other than the organic that they had been trying to catch for a second time. She was currently in the middle of yelling and shouting her head off, and trying to not be dragged out in the open by some strange, glowing thing that was hung around her neck by a strap. Before anyone could react, a beam of pure, blue-ish light shot into the sky and beyond.

They all stared in confusion as the beam of light stopped, and then began moving downwards towards the city. Looking closely, the assembled bots could see that the beam was following a dot in the sky that soon came close enough to be easily recognized as a fighter jet. Moments later, the beam of light dissipated – and the jet started firing on the city. Explosions shook the ground as missiles and energy blasts shot forth from the jet, turning the city center into an inferno.

Every optic at the scene turned to look at the organic, who was staring at the attacking jet with the same amount of apparent confusion as everyone else. Meanwhile, the object around her neck had stopped glowing, and had dropped limp against her chest, revealing it to be an old-fashioned key.

Sensing everyone looking at her, she turned away from the sight to look back at them. Seeing the confused and shocked looks in their optics, she held up her hands defensively.

"Hey, that's not one of mine," she said, "But I guess I should be thanking whoever it is. After all, now you've got a choice: either stay here and deal with me and my bots – who haven't actually hurt anyone, might I add – or go deal with the flying wacko blowing up the city. Your decision."

Prime glared at the organic, who grinned back at him. He glanced over at the smoke rising from the fires in the city center caused by the jet's attacks; that was all the motivation he needed for his decision.

"Autobots, move out!" he ordered.

"Are you out of your motherboarding mind?" Ratchet asked, "We can't just let these slaggers keep running around!"

"Hey! Who youz callin' a slagger?!" Runamuck snapped, flexing his morning star.

"Prime's right," Prowl said as he helped a slowly-recovering Bumblebee to his feet, "That jet's the bigger threat. Besides, I don't think this is the last time we're going to meet."

The last part he said as he glanced at Flamewar. The femme smirked back at him, her optics turning a shade of red that was closer to pink.

"Count on it," she replied.

The Autobots transformed into vehicle mode – Bumblebee a tad bit shakier than the others – and drove off in the direction of the attacking jet. Sari watched them go, a satisfied grin on her face. As soon as they were out of sight, she gave a whoop of excitement and ran towards her bots.

"Nice job!" she shouted, practically latching onto Flamewar's leg, "You kicked their butts!"

"True," Flamewar said, her optics turning mostly blue and her voice taking on a sage tone, "But we neither won nor lost, so we cannot call this a victory."

"Geez, 'War, can't youz just take a slaggin' compliment?" Runabout asked.

"Stuff it in your crankshaft, aft-head!" Flamewar snapped, her optics turning red again and her voice returning to normal. Looking down at her creator, Flamewar then asked, "Should we head back to base?"

Sari shook her head. "Not yet," she said, "My key responded to that jet for a reason; I want to know why." She paused for a moment, before smirking and adding, "Besides, this would be a good time to let our other friend do his job, don't you think?"

**LINEBREAK/Scene Change**

**Detroit, City Center**

Starscream had to admit, this was a fair bit of honest fun. He had forgotten the last time he had leveled a city and tormented a few thousand lifeforms, and this only served to remind him of just how much he missed doing it. The screams, the smoke, the flames towering high and into the sky as black and white specks of ash rained down like snow on some frozen world…

But alas, it was not to last. Out of the corner of a hidden optic in his newly attained alt-mode he spotted the Autobots making a valiant charge into the carnage he was creating, and were already hard at work at undoing it.

Such a pity, he had worked hard on that. Trust the Autobots to ruin someone's fun.

But there was no time for fun anyways; he was here on business. Time to destroy the Autobots and claim the AllSpark, or was it the other way around? He would just sort it out later.

But if an organic or two got in the way, who was he to complain?

He dived downwards, a wild cackle ringing in the air as his null-rays charged and thought to himself, _"__Ah, the things I do for power. And who said that you can't mix work and fun?"_

Meanwhile, with the Autobots, they were working hard on stopping the fires and getting the humans to safety, with Prime shouting orders at rapid fire.

"Bumblebee, Prowl! Get the civilians to safety right now! Bulkhead, clear the debris! Ratchet, you're with me on fire duty! See if you can use those hydrants and get some water on these flames! And if anyone sees that jet, I want to know right away! Now Autobots, move out!"

For once, there were no shouts of complaint or anything, just a quick round of nods before everyone jumped to their duties. Prime turned to one of the burning buildings, and started using his extinguishers to effect.

Just as he was beginning to get the flames under control, he heard a droning noise just before Bumblebee shouted out, "Heads up!"

Looking up, the Prime found that the jet was heading straight towards them, the energy cannons on its wings glowing as they prepared to fire – which they did seconds after he noticed them. Jumping out of the way, the red-and-blue bot barely avoided being vaporized, the building behind him that he had just extinguished being once more set aflame.

The jet shot by, just barely above the street, before zooming back up into the air. However, at several yards in the air, the jet stopped and – to almost none of the Autobots' surprise – transformed. The jet shifted into a large grey-and-purple mech; his wings swept behind him and bent into points, long narrow laser cannons were attached to his wrists, and an evil smirk was plastered on his faceplates, which stretched down into his abnormally large chin (which, strangely enough, reminded Optimus of Sentinel). But what really caught the Autobots' attention was the purple symbol etched onto the mech's wings.

"_A Decepticon,_" Prime thought with a chill, "_So they _are _on this planet… Primus, why is it that the one time I want to be wrong, I'm right?_"

The rest of the Autobots quickly regrouped around their leader and readied their weapons as the Decepticon glared down at them.

"Hello, Autobots," the flier sneered, "I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"And you would be who, exactly?" Prowl asked, gripping the shuriken in his hands tightly.

The Decepticon laughed; it sounded like a cheese grater being used on sheet metal.

"I am Starscream," he declared, flexing his arms dramatically, "Supreme Leader of the Decepticons!"

Bulkhead scratched his head in confusion. "I thought that was Megatron's job?"

Starscream's faceplates contorted into an expression of pure disgust and anger. His body was radiating so much hate, it was almost palpable, and the Autobots stepped back instinctively as they prepared for an attack.

"Don't you dare say that name!" Starscream snarled, "Megatron was a weakling and a fool! I am twice the leader he ever was!"

Without another word, he aimed his null-rays at them and opened fire. The Autobots scattered as the energy blasts rained down on them, turning the pavement they had been standing on mere moments ago into molten slag. They quickly retaliated, throwing everything they had at him. Prowl's shuriken, Bulkhead's wrecking ball, and Prime's rocket axe all flew through the air, while Bumblebee fired his stingers and Ratchet threw any debris that his magnets could get a hold off.

Unfortunately, Starscream wasn't so easily defeated. He blasted the debris and shuriken before they got anywhere near him, and then expertly dodged the energy blasts and wrecking ball. As the axe neared him, he merely stood still in midair and moved his head to the side, letting the rocket-propelled weapon fly right past him without even coming close.

"Ha!" Starscream laughed, "Is this the best you can do? You Autobots are path-GAH!"

The purple Decepticon was cut off as the axe boomeranged back into his head, sending him spinning as the offending object continued on its path back to its owner. Prime grabbed the axe's handle as it flew into his hand and quickly swung it around so that it was ready to use again – judging by the look in Starscream's optics as he regained his equilibrium, this fight was far from finished.

"Slagging Auto-scum!" Starscream snarled as he clutched his head, "Enough games!"

He fired off another blast from his null-rays, scattering the Autobots, and before they could regroup, he began raining a virtual storm of energy down on the street below him. As soon as he saw that they were disoriented, Starscream shot downward and tackled Prime. The red-and-blue Autobot was sent flying back and slammed into the side of a still-burning building, and before he could move Starscream pinned him to the wall and wrapped the clawed servos of one hand around the young mech's neck.

"Where is it?" Starscream hissed, his face no more than a few inches away from Prime's, "Where is the AllSpark?! Tell me!"

"We… we don't… have it," Optimus gasped out, his intake valves being crushed.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Starscream snarled, "I know you are the ones who retrieved it from that asteroid field fifty stellar cycles ago. I know it was on your ship when you passed through the Space Bridge, which means it must still be with you. Now tell me where it is!"

Before Prime could deny their possession of the AllSpark again, Starscream screeched in pain as a blast of energy hit him in the back. Turning around, he saw Bumblebee standing behind him, stingers still crackling with energy and a stunned expression on his faceplates from the apparent lack of damage that his weapons had just done.

"You scratched my paintjob," Starscream said simply and coldly. He then effortlessly picked Prime up and threw him at the smaller mech, knocking both of them to the ground. But before the Seeker could gloat about it, Bulkhead's wrecking ball slammed into him and sent him flying skidplate-over-cranial unit through the air. He quickly managed to steady himself, but was soon hit by a truck – courtesy of Ratchet's magnets – and was thrown back into the support pillar of a freeway overpass, which cracked from the impact. Starscream blasted most of the truck off him, but before he could go anywhere several shuriken hit him, pinning him to the damaged pillar. Looking at the weapons in shock, he then looked up to see Prowl crouched atop a streetlamp with several more shuriken in hand.

"Did you really think this would hold me?" the Decepticon sneered as he flexed his arms and wings, ripping out the shuriken pinning him to the pillar… along with several good-sized chunks of the steel-reinforced concrete that composed it.

"Not really," Prowl responded with a shrug. Noticing Starscream's confused look, he merely smirked and pointed at the damaged support pillar. Turning to look behind him, Starscream's optics went wide as he realized that the pillar had been damaged to the point that it was collapsing – along with the section of freeway that it was holding up directly above him.

"Oh, slag," was all he got out before the overpass collapsed on him, burying him under several tons of concrete and metal. As the dust settled from the collapse, the Autobots gathered nearby, weapons still at the ready.

"Uh, what are the odds that took him out?" Bulkhead asked.

"Considering what I remember from the Great War… not very likely," Ratchet answered, as he magnetically raised several pieces of debris and prepared to throw them.

The medic was proven correct moments later, when Starscream burst out of the rubble. His body was covered in dents and scratches, and his self-maintenance sub-routines were stating that one of his flight stabilizers was damaged, but he was far from weakened enough to lose this fight to a bunch of Autobot repairmen.

"Fools," he spat, "Do you really think you can defeat a member of the Decepticon elite so easily?"

"Hey, we managed to take down Megatron, shovel-chin," Bumblebee said as he warmed his stingers up to maximum power, "I think we can take one of his cronies just fine."

Starscream twitched at the chin comment, but then his faceplates split into an evil grin and he began chuckling. The chuckling soon turned into full-blown hysterical laughter, causing all of the Autobots to stare at him in confusion.

"You actually believe that?" Starscream asked between laughs, "Well, then I've got bad news for you, Auto-fools. You didn't defeat Megatron – _I _defeated Megatron! I was the one who planted the device that caused his systems to overload and destroy him! You just happened to be in the right place at the right time for me to pin the blame on; when I return to New Kaon not only with the AllSpark but with the news that I have destroyed Megatron's 'killers', the rest of the Decepticons will have no choice but to declare me their leader!"

Prime could only listen to this in shocked horror. All this time, he and his team had thought that they were the ones to defeat Megatron (albeit barely). But now it turned out that he had actually been destroyed through the actions of one of his own soldiers.

"_I'd heard the stories about how ruthless and cold-sparked the Decepticons could be,_" he thought with a shiver, "_But that one of them would go this far for power…_"

Prime was pulled from his thoughts as Starscream fired his thrusters and launched himself into the air, switching into vehicle mode. His hidden mouth formed into a grin as his systems told him that this compensated for his damaged stabilizer. Spinning around in the air, he began diving towards the Autobots, powering up his weapons and targeting the red-and-blue mech he had identified as the leader.

"Enough talking!" he shouted, "It's time to end this! Once I'm done with you, I'll track down wherever you're hiding the AllSpark. Then I'll use it to turn this world into a cinder, and bend Cybertron to my will! Now, say goodbye Autobots!"

The Autobots prepared for an attack, but were startled when one _did_come – from behind them. A blast of energy shot over their heads, striking Starscream directly in one of his engines.

"What the Pit?!" Starscream screeched in a tone worthy of his name, as two more energy bolts hit him. One grazed him along the bottom of his chassis, while the other blew off the tip of his wing.

"No, no, no!" the Decepticon screamed, as he began spinning out of control. Trailing smoke, he disappeared over the tops of several buildings, and judging by the sound of a tremendous splash, he crashed in the river. The Autobots could only stare and blink in confusion for several moments, completely taken aback by the sudden change in events. Bumblebee was the first to voice the group's collective confusion.

"What the slag just happened?"

But before any of the other Autobots could answer him, someone else did. A dark and silky smooth voice chuckled from behind the group, and whirling around they came face-to-face with a shadowed figure standing in the mouth of a nearby alley.

The figure could be nothing but a Cybertronian, it was so tall and so obviously mechanical. In the direction of the now departed Starscream, it had an arm raised with an impressive looking blaster – that was still smoking from the blasts – attached to the wrist. And from the shadows of the alley a pair of _pink_ yet oddly _threatening_ optics glowed and stared out at them.

With a deliberate slowness, the figure lowered its arm and weapon much to the relief of Prime, whose thoughts raced. _"__If that weapon could do that to a Decepticon, what could it do to us?_"

Before Prime could continue his thoughts, the figure stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the street, revealing a tall, darkly colored mech, arms raised defensively. "The slag that just happened, happened to be me. Figured you could use an extra servo, since I just happened to be cruising around. Now can you stop staring? You're making me nervous. I'm on your side, if that's any help."

The statement seemed to sound honest, and Bumblebee and Bulkhead relaxed from their tense positions. But Prime, Ratchet, and Prowl seemed to think differently. But before Prime could try and counter the mysterious mech's statement, Ratchet noticed something and pointed it out to Prime and Prowl. "Prime, I think he's telling the truth. Take a closer look, since there is no 'Con that _I_ have ever met that would be caught offline or otherwise with something like _that_."

Following Ratchet's gaze, Prime and Prowl spotted what he was talking about. The pretty much cast-iron proof of the mech's statement, a shining red Autobot symbol etched into the purple chest plates of the mech. Prime's optics flew back up to the masked faceplates of their apparent comrade, and his stance relaxed, more of shock and surprise than anything else. Ratchet relaxed as well, but Prowl kept a somewhat guarded stance. "You're an _Autobot?_ But how? I thought we were the only ones here! When did you get here, and _how_ did you get here? Who are you?"

The mysterious mech just chuckled, and transformed into a sleek racing cycle. "How bout we find someplace quiet to talk, and I'll tell you all about it. And by the way, the name… is Sideways. Nice to meet you, Optimus Prime."

_Meanwhile..._

Sari grinned at the scene she saw with her nice new binoculars, courtesy of Flamewar. She would have to ask where she got them, and say thanks. She looked down from her perch on the roof of a nameless building and down at the street and shouted, "They took it! They really did!"

Flamewar looked up at the shouting child, a coy smile on her faceplates. "Just like he said they would. I am surprised that it was that easy."

Sari smiled back, absolutely beaming. "Me too, Flamewar, now get me down and let's go home. I have to introduce you to someone."

And as Flamewar helped Sari down from the roof, that someone in question raged as the recordings from a lone street camera played back the same scene over and over again, Starscream's confession of betrayal playing in the darkened room.

**A/N:**_ Well, there we go. Chapter 13, and we still have a long way to go. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, and that you will continue to enjoy them as me and my Beta produce them, Plz, R&R! Cuz it makes us feel appreciated....._


	14. AN: NOT BAD NEWS!

_**A/N**_

**Now, before you few and far between of my Readers have a Heart Attack, this is not Bad news. I am not Dumping Stories or leaving for the supposed greener grass on the other side of the bridge. I am not caught up in life in general, and can no longer update. I am merely a Slow Writer. To those that like my stories and wish me to update, I am. But you have to remember, I am only Human and I have alot of stuff on my plate to get through. **

**For those of you waiting on MBSTS, let it be known that after intensive Discussion with my peers that I am going to be reworking the story. This just means its due for another Rewrite, and I will not be releasing the next chapter till I have gone through all the other ones and made them slightly less Shitty.**

**For those waiting on _Two for the Show_, I am writing the next chapter between working on the Rewritten Chapters of MBSTS. There will be plenty for you to chew on, just be patient. Good things come to those that wait/**

**For _Titan's Servant_ and _Viral Innocence_, these are Back Burner Projects that I will update, but they will be updated lastly among my works.**

**So please, keep in mind I am not a Literary Machine that exists as a Faceless Soulless entity on the web, simply writing for you viewing pleasure. Give me time, and I will give you updates. For those of you that are chewing me out because of my slow update rate, try talking to those that update about once every three years with a 800 word long Chapter and keep in mind that as a Simple Human, I am very capable of being extremely Spiteful. **

**So keep it up, keep pushing my Buttons and see what happens. Its one Big Button, just waiting for you. Come on, whats the worst that can Happen? Its round and Shiny and has a pretty white Skull painted on it. Don't it look Oh so Inviting? **

**With that out of the way, I shall wrap this up. I hope this has been a informing Message and answered some of your questions. For some of you who have PM'ed me and are not being rude, but have not received a answer, let it be known that for strange reasons unknown to me, My account rarely informs me of when I get a message. I Check my Email, and if it says I got a message on the site, I go read it and respond. If not, then I don't know and I don't respond and it gets misplaced as other messages pile up. So I am not ignoring you on purpose and I am extremely sorry if you have sent a message only to get nothing back.**

_**With All regards,**_

_**Nocturne No Kitsune.**_


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